Page 468 - Environmental Nanotechnology Applications and Impacts of Nanomaterials

Chapter
12

Ecotoxicological Impacts

of Nanomaterials

Delina Y. Lyon Rice University, Houston, Texas
Antoine Thill Commissariat de l’Energy Atomique, Saclay (Paris), France
Jerome Rose CNRS-University of Aix-Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, France
Pedro J. J. Alvarez Rice University, Houston, Texas

Keywords: ecotoxicology, toxicology, antibacterial, reactive oxygen
species (ROS), bacteria, developmental toxicity, antimicrobial, uptake,
biotransformation.

Introduction
The widespread production of engineered nanomaterials started in the
1980s, and their rapid incorporation into a variety of consumer products
and applications is outpacing the development of appropriate regulations
to mitigate potential risks associated with their release to the environ-
ment. Therefore, several research initiatives have been recently started
to improve our understanding of the transport, fate, reactivity, and
ecotoxicity of several nanomaterials that have a relatively high proba-
bility of environmental release.
Many of the inorganic nanomaterials, such as TiO , ZnO, and quan-
2
tum dots, are likely to be found in the environment due to their manu-
facture or intended application. Nano-sized titanium dioxide (a.k.a.
anatase, TiO ), a good opacifier, is used as a pigment in paints, paper,
2
inks, and plastics. In electronics, crystalline SiO works as both a semi-
2
conductor and an electrical insulator. The ceramic nature of ZnO allows
its use as a pigment and a semiconductor. Nano-scale TiO , SiO , and ZnO
2
2
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