Abstract
Unprotected exposure to solar UV is the main recognized cause of the spreading of skin cancer that has occurred in the last decades. Organic and inorganic UV filters are the main defense against UV exposure and have become ubiquitous in personal-care products, packaging, plastics, dyes, and many other sectors. UV filters still have some stability and efficacy issues making it important to find stable and broad-spectrum UV absorbers, safer for human health and the environment. In this work UV filters octinoxate and avobenzone were encapsulated into zeolites with different chemistry and topology leading to the production of hybrid zeolites/organic filter sunscreens. The obtained materials were deeply characterized and their filtering capacity evaluated. The encapsulation of UV filters in cationic zeolites resulted in an enhanced UV filtering capacity, whereas that in acid zeolites seem less effective in absorbing UV radiation, with emerging visible coloring. The enhancement of UV filtering power is of paramount importance for the future development and exploitation of ZEOfilters, possibly being the key to reduce the quantity of actives, stabilizers, and co-formulants employed, with benefits for humankind and the environment.
Highlights
The solar UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is increasing since the 1970s at middle-high latitude, even if, after the Montreal Protocol (1989), the trend significantly slowed down due to the recovery of the ozone layer [1]
Zeolite loading represented a challenging aspect in the preparation of the hybrid ZEOfilters, because the UVfs maximum loading was unknown and the washing procedure had to be effective in removing the surface excess of the UVfs without affecting the encapsu lated molecules
We presented an efficient approach to the production of ZEOfilters, hybrid UV filtering materials constituted by the encapsulation of organic UV filters into zeolites with different framework topologies (LTL, MOR, FAU, MFI) and chemistry
Summary
The solar UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is increasing since the 1970s at middle-high latitude, even if, after the Montreal Protocol (1989), the trend significantly slowed down due to the recovery of the ozone layer [1]. European countries have shown an overall increase in melanoma incidence rate in the last decades [6] These alarming numbers explain why sunscreen products are becoming of utmost importance in recent times. As for organic UVfs, different studies explored the stabilizing effect of their encapsulation into organic and inorganic materials The ZEOfilters are ex pected to overcome the issues linked to both the use of the bare UVfs and the matrices other than zeolites This investigation proves the efficacy of zeolites in encapsulating UVfs and the capacity of the hybrid materials to absorb UV radiation, with interesting perspectives for new-generation sunscreens
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