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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

"Silver nanowires" is probably the limiting factor on this one. Silver isn't that rare but it's certainly not cheap compared to normal textile fibers.

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Also probably a skin and lung irritant. Lots of people have contact allergies to macroscale silver and nanowires tend to get embedded in cells in soft tissue.

Regarding nanowires, for what it's worth, nano silver is used as a highly effective antimicrobial skin cream, and none of its users complain of an allergy. In this way it also accelerates wound healing. It is even more benign than some skin antibiotics that trigger an allergy. Given this evidence, I don't think nanoscale use of silver in clothing is going to be a a concern for the vast majority of people.

Disclaimer: Silver is a slight poison and should not be used for a prolonged duration.

>and none of its users complain of an allergy.

I have a hard time imagining that's true for any material, ever.

I think the concern is about when the clothing starts falling apart and nanowires end up in the air of your room and eventually your lungs/stomach, like nanoplastics cross into tissue and individual cells, accumulate, turn up in sperm/placenta etc.

It turns out that some small amount of nano silver is perfectly manageable by the body, although I make no claim for the lungs. People even apply or drink it as an antimicrobial medicine without issue. It's when they take too much silver over time that it becomes an issue.

The key is "nano wires". What we drink and eat gets pooped out and doesn't permeate organ tissue and cells. Nano stuff does.

As I understand, the body has mechanisms to safely eliminate some low amount of nano silver. I don't know if the exposure from this material as clothing would exceed any safe threshold.

1) human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime.

2) nano means it is not subject to elimination by food pipeline. It will cross into tissue and stay there, addition only.

> human body doesn't use silver. At all. Which means it accumulates over lifetime.

The human body has diverse ways to excrete things many that it doesn't use, namely by urine, stools, sweat, and bile. Kidneys, liver, and intestines specialize in it.

<<Up to a point, excess silver is excreted out>>, although other things like various forms of PFAS are not.

All of those things you described happen in food pipeline, something nano size that could even come through your lungs would cross into soft tissue and individual cells and live there forever never to be excreted, again see microplastic in sperm and placenta

Upon further research, it turns out that nano silver gradually accumulates in the brain and the testes. It is otherwise eliminated from the body, but not so easily from these organs. As such, it is not safe for long-term exposure.

References:

Accumulation of Silver Nanoparticles in Brain and Testes during Long-Term Ingestion to Mammals (2017)

Disturbance in Mammalian Cognition Caused by Accumulation of Silver in Brain (2021) (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

References:

Accumulation of Silver Nanoparticles in Brain and Testes during Long-Term Ingestion to Mammals (2017)

Disturbance in Mammalian Cognition Caused by Accumulation of Silver in Brain (2021) (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

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