Genotoxicity assessment of waste products of aluminum plasma etching with the SOS chromotest

Abstract

We evaluated 36 characteristic waste products from the plasma etching of aluminum for genotoxicity with the SOS chromotest. The majority of the samples showed genotoxic activity in tester strain Escherichia coli PQ37 without metabolic activation using S9 mix. In the presence of S9, a deactivation of the samples was regularly observed. Comparable studies with the Salmonella/microsome (Ames) test using tester strains Salmonella typhimurium TA98 and TA100 indicated actual mutagenicity of waste products. Gas chromatograms of the organic constituents of all waste products were performed in parallel with the genotoxicity assays. In contrast to the similarity of the peak patterns of all chromatograms, the biological effects of individual waste samples showed large differences. Information on chemical composition and the SOS chromotest results of a representative sample recovered over a period of 2 years is given. For this sample, the influences of sample preparation and cytotoxic matrix effects on the test parameters are also shown. © 1993.