Decontamination of metals from firefighter turnout gear

Firefighters are exposed to many different contaminants during structural fires. Moreover, if their protective gear is not successfully decontaminated, firefighters are at risk of being repeatedly exposed to contaminants from previous fires. Thus, the successful removal of contaminants from firefighter turnout gear is necessary to prevent or reduce repeated exposure risks. Laundering methods can reduce the probability of re-exposure to contaminants, such as heavy metals, thus reducing repeated exposure risks. In this study, the efficiencies of heavy metal removal from the firefighter turnout gear outer textile by Decon7 cleaning solution and a standard reference detergent were compared. Nitric acid digests were used to extract metals from textile samples, which were cut from small sections of firefighter jackets, before and after their laundering with either cleaning solution. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was utilized to determine metal contents, including arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and lead (Pb) concentrations. Results from multiplicate samples indicated that, on average, Decon7 was significantly more efficient than a standard detergent in decreasing the concentrations of the five metals studied herein.