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A pendulum rig study on airborne transmission and migration of particles from artificial football turf
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A pendulum rig experiment studied the airborne transmission and migration of particles from artificial football turf, measuring how shoe-turf impacts generate inhalable airborne particles from rubber infill material. The findings raise concerns about exposure to airborne microplastic particles for athletes using artificial turf fields.
Artificial football turf is today an increasingly common playing surface for athletics and kids. Its environmental impact is much debated, which is ranked as the second most common source of micro-plastic migration into nature. There are also concerns regarding the spread of inhalable airborne particles, originating from the wear between the football shoe-artificial turf contact. In this study a British pendulum rig is used to simulate the contact between football shoe stud and the artificial turf. The test rig is placed in a clean room environment, to ascertain if there are measurable levels of airborne particles generated in different sizes. The particle concentration was measured for airborne particles in size between 0.3 to 10 μm. In addition, migration studies of micro-plastics were also performed using the same test set up. Three commonly used rubber granule infill materials are tested in this study: SBR, TPE and EPDM. The results show that EPDM generates more airborne particles than the other two materials. Measurable levels of airborne wear particles were noted in the range from 0.3–10 μm. For the migration studies of micro-plastics, TPE generated the largest number of migrated particles.
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