When I say "hydrogel", what I mean are those water-retaining crystals that are used (mostly for potted plants) to help maintain humidity in the soil and to allow the gardener to cut down a bit with watering. I wanted to use them out in my garden around my new implants to help keep them hydrated between waterings,but I found the following article on Internet: https://cals.arizona.edu/yavap... (hope the link works). Mainly I'm troubled by the following statement: " Aside from these variable results, some gardeners are concerned with the safety of PAM hydrogels. As the name suggests, polyacrylamides consist of many linked acrylamide subunits. Acrylamide is a known neurotoxin in humans and is suspected to be carcinogenic as well. During the manufacture of PAM gels, residual acrylamide is present as a contaminant and strictly regulated in the United States to levels no more than 0.05% or 500 ppm for agricultural use. However, an international study recommended that polyacrylamide gels used in cosmetics contain a residual monomer level of only 0.1 to 0.5 ppm. Therefore, the PAM hydrogels manufactured for agricultural and garden use can contain much greater concentrations of (1,000 to 5,000 times) toxic acrylamide than that found in personal products causing concern among some users.
Additional health issues can be presented by exposure to the more or less intact polyacrylamide gel where toxic effects have documented. Health risks associated with the breakdown products of PAM hydrogels are entirely unknown, but exposure risk could be great to gardeners and green industry workers that are exposed over time."
Now, this article is from the year 2009-more than 10 years ago. I'm wondering if anything has changed since then,if there's been any new research or better yet, a change in the formulas used to make the gels. Does anyone have any more up-dated information? Thanks in advance!
5 years ago
roseseek