Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
figurE 30.4
Consumer products containing nanomaterials that are already in the market.
included in a list of representative manufactured NMs published by the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials
(WPMN), a committee formed in 2006 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECd) to address
the safety challenges of NMs.
By 2010, between 880 and 1000 different consumer products containing ENMs were identified in the market, a number that
has been steadily increasing every year [12, 13]. Just in the span of 3 years (2007-2010), the number increased sixfold,
recording the largest increment for personal care and coating products, including cosmetics, textiles, and antiwetting products.
If we add to that the number of natural NMs, the exposure to nanostructured materials is an actual, real, and complex problem
that needs to be carefully analyzed to understand the potential risks and to determine the right protective measures that should
be implemented for our own safety (Fig. 30.4).
In order to determine whether an NM is toxic (or not) for the environment or human health, it will need a very rigorous
characterization to know its precise physical and chemical characteristics and to understand the biological consequences of
its use. Some relevant properties of NMs need to be considered in order to assess their potential toxicity: how they react
(chemically), the sorption of chemicals on their surface or their own sorption onto a biological surface, the size/shape rela-
tionship, whether they are soluble or not in some specific solvent, their pH range or physical state, whether they are suscep-
tible to form aggregates or to agglomerate, and, finally, whether a coating is present or not among some others. Some relevant
effects to monitor are the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), whether they are able to act as carriers of toxic
