Initiating silver recycling efforts: Quantifying Ag from used burn dressings

• Silver in used silver nanoparticle medical dressings pose an environmental risk.
• We aimed to quantify the amount of silver in used relative to unused dressings.
• No statistically significant difference in silver concentration was found.
• Recycling silver from used dressings should be considered.

Acticoat™ is a silver nanoparticle burn and wound dressing. Following use they are sent to the landfill where silver leaching into the environment can occur. Although the toxic effects of silver are known, no study has calculated the amount of silver remaining in used dressings. Herein we quantify the amount of silver in used relative to unused dressings to establish a need for recycling initiatives. Acticoat™ dressings obtained from British Columbia Children’s Hospital were sampled and an acid digestion to extract silver was optimized and performed. The concentration of silver was measured by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Method validation samples determined the accuracy and precision of our methodology. In an unused sample of Acticoat™, there was (1.2 ± 0.8) mg silver/cm22, with a standard deviation of 0.08 mg silver/cm22 and %RSD of 7% at the 95% confidence interval. In a used sample of Acticoat™, (0.7 ± 0.4) mg silver/cm22 was found, with a standard deviation of 0.3 mg silver/cm22 and %RSD of 39% at the 95% confidence interval. There was no statistical loss of silver in the used dressings compared to the unused dressings indicating reason to evaluate silver recycling initiatives to prevent further silver environmental toxicity.

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