Investigation of the chemical content and physicochemical properties of some hand disinfectants used during the pandemic period in Turkey

In recent years, it has been observed that hand and skin antisepsis, or hand disinfectants, prepared in arbitrary formulations, have been produced for various reasons such as raw material shortages during pandemics and disaster periods. As with many chemical hygiene products, the efforts of people who are not competent in hand disinfectants to produce chemical mixtures can threaten human and environmental health. However, creating chemical mixtures requires knowledge of chemical reaction mechanisms and rates, as well as knowledge of chemical raw materials. This is a study that should only be carried out by a competent chemist with chemistry training. In this study, we aimed to examine 21 hand and skin antisepsis produced and used in Turkey in an in vitro skin simulation environment. For this purpose, peroxidation kinetics in disinfectant samples and UV-B induced linoleic acid emulsions were examined. The formation rates of primary oxidation products were determined using conjugate and iron (III) thiocyanate (Fe(III)SCN) analytical methods. Additionally, the physicochemical properties of these market products such as pH, conductivity and total dissolved solids (TDS) amount were checked. It was observed that many of these disinfectant samples increased the lipid oxidation rate and were produced without paying attention to skin pH. In addition, in this study, the content determination of disinfectant mixtures was attempted using gas chromatographic (GC) analyses. The results obtained were examined in comparison with the content information of the disinfectant samples. The results of this study reveal the effects of some disinfectant products on the market in terms of possible damage to the skin fat layer in vitro and also point out the issues that should be taken into consideration when preparing disinfectant prescriptions.