Comment pubs.acs.org/est
Environmental Nanotoxicology and invertebrates. The second group of papers addresses the tools that can be used to measure and predict the environmental fate of nanomaterials in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Two papers address the broader questions of appropriate hazard assessment and artifact-free experimental design and analysis. Finally, a critical review focuses on the importance of environmentally relevant testing conditions so as to accurately assess ecological hazard, including recommendations for maximizing the knowledge gained from this type of work. A consistent theme throughout these papers is the difficulty in detecting and quantifying nanomaterials in complex biological or environmental matrices. Most agree that although progress has been made here, the field of nanotoxicology still requires a robust, reliable and accurate set of tools for detection and measurement. Our understanding of nanomaterial fate and effects has increased dramatically during the past decade, and for many commonly used materials we have a thorough comprehension of inherent hazard. However, that knowledge base is insufficient to answer the primary question of safety and risk. Research such as that included in this Virtual Issue is moving us in the right direction. The full benefits of nanotechnology will only be achieved when the tools to understand and manage health and environmental risks are available.
Nanotechnologythe science of smallhas developed at a rapid pace over the past decade, with applications in sectors as diverse as communications, medicine, energy production, water treatment, agriculture, textiles and cosmetics. Some of these applications are nothing short of revolutionary, including dramatically improved disease treatment and increased safety and sustainability in food production. These advances have been enabled by large investments in nanotechnology. For example, the 2016 U.S. federal budget allocates nearly $1.5 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative in an effort to realize the benefits of a new industry with a global market value projected to exceed $3 trillion by the end of the decade. The development of nanotechnology has been driven by the unique physicochemical properties of materials at the nanoscale. The nanomaterials that are receiving the most attention are as diverse as the applications, with the development of metal and metal oxides of Ag, Ti, Cu, Au, Zn, as well as rare earth elements such Ce and La. Investments are also leading to the development of products with a range of carbon-based materials including nanotubes (single or multiwall), fullerenes, and graphene, as well as multielement materials such as quantum dots. Notably, many of these engineered nanomaterials are incorporated into complex polymers or composites. In conjunction with this rapid growth in the application of nanotechnology, the scientific community has responded with efforts to assess environmental health and safety as a means of assuring the safety of these new technologies. Despite a significant research effort, the general consensus among the scientific community is that our understanding of the fate and effects of engineered nanomaterials in the environment is inadequate to appropriately assess risks to biota, including humans. This is partially due to a lack of a definitive regulatory framework requiring particle-size specific data on toxicity and environmental fate. The field of nanotoxicology began addressing some of these key knowledge gaps nearly a decade ago, and some significant progress has been made with respect to both the questions being asked and the experimental approaches being employed. The number of researchers working in this area continues to grow and much has been learned about the inherent hazards of many of these nanomaterials. Our ability to detect both nanomaterial presence and effects has increased dramatically, although the complexities of environmentally relevant conditions still present significant challenges. To highlight new developments in the environmental or ecotoxicological aspects of nanotoxicology, Environmental Science & Technology, Environmental Science & Technology Letters, and Chemical Research in Toxicology have teamed together to create a Virtual Issue with articles from 2014 to 2016 that specifically focus on nanomaterial fate and effects from the molecular to the community level. The first group of papers assesses the response of organisms to nanomaterials under conditions meant to mimic reality, including at the mesocosm level; biota in these studies range from nitrogenfixing bacteria to algae and phytoplankton to terrestrial plants © 2016 American Chemical Society
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Jason C. White,* Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Baoshan Xing, University of Massachusetts
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[email protected]. Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS. The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Published: June 7, 2016 5423
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b02527 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, 50, 5423−5423
