Toxicity of Engineered Nanoparticles in the Environment

By M. Maurer-Jones, Ian L. Gunsolus, C. Murphy, Christy L. Haynes. Analytical Chemistry, 2013

659 citations recorded by the source corpus.

While nanoparticles occur naturally in the environment and have been intentionally used for centuries, the production and use of engineered nanoparticles has seen a recent spike, which makes environmental release almost certain. Therefore, recent efforts to characterize the toxicity of engineered nanoparticles have focused on the environmental implications, including exploration of toxicity to organisms from wide-ranging parts of the ecosystem food webs. Herein, we summarize the current understanding of toxicity of engineered nanoparticles to representatives of various trophic levels, including bacteria, plants, and multicellular aquatic/terrestrial organisms, to highlight important challenges within the field of econanotoxicity, challenges that analytical chemists are expertly poised to address.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d1fa9cb83d002d3dab95defa4b319796bb7ba69c

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Citations in the corpus

• Interactions between engineered nanomaterials and agricultural crops: implications for food safety (2014, background): “It is possible that in vivo, ENMs surface functional groups could covalently bind to protein/DNA or lipophilic molecules within the membrane or cytoplasm (Stark, 2011; Maurer-Jones et al., 2013).”
• Effect of nanoparticles on crops and soil microbial communities (2018, background): “…via soil and water remediation technologies, application in agriculture (in the form of fertilizers and pesticides), and unintentional releases via air, water, sewage, and sludge (Tourinho et al. 2012; Tripathi et al. 2012; Maurer-Jones et al. 2013; Shandilya et al. 2015; Coll et al. 2016).”
• Impact of humic/fulvic acid on the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions using nanomaterials: a review. (2014, background): “Less aggregation yields lower rates of sedimentation and greater mobility (Maurer-Jones et al., 2013).”
• Green Synthesis of Metallic Nanoparticles: Applications and Limitations (2021, methodology): “Besides their natural origin, humans have also started synthesizing NPs through various methods [2].”
• Zinc Oxide and Silicone Nanoparticles to Improve the Resistance Mechanism and Annual Productivity of Salt-Stressed Mango Trees (2020, background): “Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) are composed of a variety of naturally occurring materials with different physical characteristics [23].”
• Impact of Metal and Metal Oxide Nanoparticles on Plant: A Critical Review (2017, background): “Engineered nanoparticles are composed of a variety of materials and occur in different sizes and shapes with a suite of synthetic surface molecules, which makes them distinct from naturally occurring materials (Radad et al., 2012; Maurer-Jones et al., 2013).”
• Nanotechnology in agriculture: Next steps for understanding engineered nanoparticle exposure and risk (2016, background): “For example, amino acids such as cysteine present in proteins and natural organic matter have been shown to increase initial ENP aggregation rates but not long-term aggregation size (Maurer-Jones et al., 2013).”
• Toxicity of silver nanoparticles against bacteria, yeast, and algae (2015, background): “Regulatory agencies around the world monitor nanoparticles fate prompting research for a detailed understanding of their toxicity (Maurer-Jones et al. 2013).”