Nanoparticles are added to food, fabrics, cosmetics and drugs with few controls – and often end up in the sea. Now scientists are asking how safe they are
In 2019, Ikea announced it had developed curtains that it claimed could “break down common indoor air pollutants”. The secret, it said, was the fabric’s special coating. “What if we could use textiles to clean the air?” asked Ikea’s product developer, Mauricio Affonso, in a promotional video for the “Gunrid” curtains.
After explaining that the coating was a photocatalyst (“similar to photosynthesis, found in nature”), Affonso is shown gazing up at the gauzy curtains while uplifting music plays. “It’s amazing to work on something that can give people the opportunity to live a healthier life at home.”
Puzzled by these claims – how could a mineral coating clean the air? – Avicenn, a French environmental nonprofit organisation, investigated. Independent laboratory tests of the Gunrid textile reported that samples contained tiny particles of titanium dioxide (TiO2) – a substance not normally toxic but which can be possibly carcinogenic if inhaled, and potentially in other forms – which supposedly gives “self-cleaning” properties to things such as paint and windows when exposed to sunlight.
