Deposition of graphene nanomaterial aerosols in human upper airways.
Deposition of graphene nanomaterial aerosols in human upper airways.
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DOI：
10.1080/15459624.2015.1076162
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发表时间：
2016
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Cheng YS
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Su WC;Ku BK;Kulkarni P;Cheng YS
近年来，石墨烯纳米材料以其优异的物理性能在高新技术领域的应用受到了广泛的关注。另一方面，石墨烯材料的纳米毒性也迅速成为一个严重的问题，特别是在职业健康方面。在制造过程中，石墨烯材料不可避免地会在工作场所通过空气传播。吸入并随后沉积在人体呼吸道的石墨烯纳米颗粒可能对接触的工人造成不利的健康影响。因此，研究石墨烯纳米颗粒在人体气道中的沉积被认为是全面开展石墨烯职业健康研究的必要条件。为此，本研究开展了一系列气道复制沉积实验，获得了石墨烯纳米颗粒气道沉积的原始数据。在这项研究中，将大小分类的石墨烯纳米颗粒递送到人体气道复制品中（包括鼻腔和口肺气道）。采用一种新颖的实验方法获得了石墨烯纳米颗粒在气道中的沉积分数和沉积效率。实验结果表明，石墨烯纳米颗粒在气道切片中的沉积分数均小于4%，且各气道切片的沉积效率普遍低于0.03。这些结果表明，吸入人体呼吸道的大部分石墨烯纳米颗粒可以很容易地穿过头部气道以及气管支气管的上部，然后向下进入下肺气道，在那里可能会引起不希望的生物反应。
Graphene nanomaterials have attracted wide attention in recent years on their application to state-of-the-art technology due to their outstanding physical properties. On the other hand, the nanotoxicity of graphene materials also has rapidly become a serious concern especially in occupational health. Graphene materials inevitably could become airborne in the workplace during manufacturing processes. The inhalation and subsequent deposition of graphene nanoparticles in the human respiratory tract could potentially result in adverse health effects to exposed workers. Therefore, investigating the deposition of graphene nanoparticles in the human airways is considered essential for an integral graphene occupational health study. For this reason, this study carried out a series of airway replica deposition experiments to obtain original data of graphene nanoparticle airway deposition. In this study, size classified graphene nanoparticles were delivered into human airway replicas (both nasal and oral-to-lung airways). The deposition fraction and efficiency of graphene nanoparticle in the airway were obtained by a novel experimental approach. The experimental results acquired showed that the fractional deposition of graphene nanoparticles in airway sections studied were all less than 4%, and the deposition efficiencies in each airway section were generally lower than 0.03. These results implies that the majority of the graphene nanoparticles inhaled into the human respiratory tract could easily penetrate through the head airways as well as the upper part of the tracheobronchial airways and then transit down to the lower lung airways, where undesired biological responses might be induced.