Coping with arsenic-based pesticides on Dine (Navajo) textiles

Arsenic-based pesticide residues have been detected on Arizona State Museum's (ASM) Dine (Navajo) textile collection using a handheld portable X-ray (pXRF) spectrometer. The removal of this toxic pesticide from historic textiles in museums collections is necessary to reduce potential health risks to Native American communities, museum professionals, and visitors. The research objective was divided into three interconnected stages: (1) empirically calibrate the pXRF instrument for arsenic contaminated cotton and wool textiles; (2) engineer an aqueous washing treatment exploring the effects of time, temperature, agitation, and pH conditions to efficiently remove arsenic from wool textiles while minimizing damage to the structure and properties of the textile; (3) demonstrate the devised aqueous washing treatment method on three historic Navajo textiles known to have arsenic-based pesticide residues. The preliminary results removed 96% of arsenic from a high arsenic concentration (~1000 ppm) textile opposed to minimal change for low arsenic concentration textiles (<100 ppm).