Size/Shape – Property Relationships of Non - Carbonaceous Inorganic Nanoparticles and their Environmental Implications - Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Nanotechnology - page 77

3

Size/Shape - Property Relationships
of Non - Carbonaceous Inorganic
Nanoparticles and their
Environmental Implications

Deborah M. Aruguete * , Juan Liu † and Michael F. Hochella , Jr. *

* Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, USA
† Chemical and Material Sciences Division, Pacifi c Northwest National Laboratory,
Rickland, USA

3.1 Introduction

Non-carbonaceous inorganic nanoparticles form one of the major classes of emerg-
ing synthetic nanomaterials. Such nanoparticles are already commercially used in
products such as sunscreens, pigments and antibacterial coatings and continue to
be heavily researched for other applications. The environment is already being
exposed to these nanoparticles and this exposure will increase as more applications
are developed.
Most nanoscience studies have been conducted under non-environmentally-
relevant conditions and, as a result, there is a dearth of data on the environmental
fate and behaviour of inorganic nanoparticles; such data is precisely what scientists
and engineers need to predict the environmental impact of the nanoparticles. In
many cases, environmentally relevant data may be available for their bulk coun-
terparts. For example, data may exist pertaining to 100 m particles of titanium

dioxide as opposed to 10 nm particles of titanium dioxide. However, many of these
nanoparticles have striking size (and sometimes shape) dependent properties which
can be radically different from those of their bulk corresponding materials, there-

µ