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Review
. 2021 Oct 27;11(11):2868.
doi: 10.3390/nano11112868.

Aquatic Environment Exposure and Toxicity of Engineered Nanomaterials Released from Nano-Enabled Products: Current Status and Data Needs

Mbuyiselwa Shadrack Moloi  1 , Raisibe Florence Lehutso  2 , Mariana Erasmus  3 , Paul Johan Oberholster  1 , Melusi Thwala  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Aquatic Environment Exposure and Toxicity of Engineered Nanomaterials Released from Nano-Enabled Products: Current Status and Data Needs

Mbuyiselwa Shadrack Moloi et al. Nanomaterials (Basel). .

Abstract

Rapid commercialisation of nano-enabled products (NEPs) elevates the potential environmental release of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) along the product life cycle. The current review examined the state of the art literature on aquatic environment exposure and ecotoxicity of product released (PR) engineered nanomaterials (PR-ENMs). Additionally, the data obtained were applied to estimate the risk posed by PR-ENMs to various trophic levels of aquatic biota as a means of identifying priority NEPs cases that may require attention with regards to examining environmental implications. Overall, the PR-ENMs are predominantly associated with the matrix of the respective NEPs, a factor that often hinders proper isolation of nano-driven toxicity effects. Nevertheless, some studies have attributed the toxicity basis of observed adverse effects to a combination of the released ions, ENMs and other components of NEPs. Notwithstanding the limitation of current ecotoxicology data limitations, the risk estimated herein points to an elevated risk towards fish arising from fabrics' PR-nAg, and the considerable potential effects from sunscreens' PR-nZnO and PR-nTiO2 to algae, echinoderms, and crustaceans (PR-nZnO), whereas PR-nTiO2 poses no significant risk to echinoderms. Considering that the current data limitations will not be overcome immediately, we recommend the careful application of similar risk estimation to isolate/prioritise cases of NEPs for detailed characterisation of ENMs' release and effects in aquatic environments.

Keywords: ecotoxicology of PR–ENMs; nano-enabled product; product released nanomaterials; risk assessment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PR–ENMs pathway in the environment. The ENMs are depicted from manufacturing to different environmental exposure pathways in the environment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The incorporation of nAg, nTiO2, nZnO and nSiO2 in various nano-enabled products’ (NEPs) categories [53].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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