Safety issues relating to nanomaterials for construction applications - Nanotechnology in Eco-efficient Construction - page 126

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Safety issues relating to nanomaterials for
construction applications

M. SPITZMILLER, S. MAHENDRA and
R. DAMOISEAUX, University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA), USA

DOI: 10.1533/9780857098832.1.127

Abstract : Nanotechnology holds great promise for advancements
in medicine, basic science and engineering, not the least for the
construction industry. Here, nanomaterials are used in a variety of
eco-effi cient applications including improved mechanical properties,
interior light control, renewable energy harvesting, and advanced
durability. However, the long-term safety aspects of these novel
materials are poorly understood. While toxicological liabilities have been
discovered in the laboratory for all known classes of nanomaterials, it is
unclear how much toxic potential for humans and the environment
various types of nanoscale materials pose. The number of manufactured
nanomaterials (MNMs) keeps growing at an exponential pace and
traditional in vivo toxicity approaches are unable to keep up with the
sheer number of MNMs and MNM-composite materials that will be
used in construction. Fortunately, the application of high-throughput in
vitro methodologies allows insight to be gained into the underlying
nanotoxicity paradigms, which in turn will enable an understanding of
the nano-properties that cause the toxic effects of a given nanomaterial
and thus informs on safe design features, enabling the safe employment
of this powerful technology. This chapter aims to give a bird's eye view
of nanomaterials used in construction, their potential toxicological
liabilities, and high throughput methodologies that can be employed
towards detecting nanotoxicity during the safety assessment of
nanomaterials.

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Key words : nanomaterials, green construction, high throughput screening,
nanosafety, nanotoxicity, manufactured nanomaterial (MNM),
engineered nanomaterial (ENM), nanotoxicology.

7.1 Introduction to nanotoxicity
Nanotechnology is at a critical juncture. Enough is known about the tech-
nology to see the enormous potential, but at the same time, the risk associ-
ated with this technology is not entirely clear (Damoiseaux et al. , 2011).
While in the last two decades nanotechnology has been applied to many
diverse fi elds and has been included in many consumer products (Gopel,
1991; Fahy, 1993; Murphy et al. , 1994; Ferrari, 2005), little is known
about the long-term effects nanomaterials might have on health and the

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