Engineered particles at the start of the food chain - quantifying their effects on pesticide targeting and contaminant mobility in soils

尽管工程纳米材料有可能增加可持续的粮食生产，但仍然存在知识差距和与其使用相关的固有风险。迄今为止被忽视的一个特殊影响是纳米材料对已经存在的污染物（和营养素）的流动性和生物利用度的影响。本研究旨在更好地定量了解农业土壤中纳米材料的相互作用、迁移和归宿。这项工作的一个主要重点是增加我们对纳米载体的理解，这些纳米载体用于改善农药在农业土壤中的运输和靶向。此外，我们将确定NP与可能存在于土壤中的污染物相互作用的潜力，可能增加其在周围土壤和地下水中的动员，浓度和生物利用度。通过更好地了解NP与农业土壤的重要相互作用，将有可能：（一）更好地针对农药应用，以提高农业的可持续性;（二）提供一些重要的洞察力，了解工程NP对食物链的风险;（iii）确定是否加入NP（通过其直接或附带的应用，即生物固体）可能调动其他环境污染物;（四）评估多种压力对土壤生产力（即土壤酶活性）和生物利用率（即蚯蚓的生物吸收量）的简单测量的影响。

Although engineered nanomaterials have the potential to increase sustainable food production, there are still knowledge gaps and inherent risks associated with their use. One particular impact that has been neglected to-date is the effects of the nanomaterials on the mobility and bioavailability of contaminants (and nutrients) that are already present. This study is designed to develop a better quantitative understanding of the interactions, transport and fate of nanomaterials in agricultural soils. A major focus of the work will be to increase our understanding of nanocarriers that are used to improve the transport and targeting of pesticides in agricultural soils. Furthermore, we will determine the potential of NP to interact with contaminants that may be present in soil, potentially increasing their mobilisation, concentrations and bioavailability in the surrounding soils and groundwaters. By better understanding the important interactions of NP with agricultural soils, it will be possible: (i) to better target pesticide applications to improve agricultural sustainability; (ii) to provide some important insight into the risk of engineered NP to the food chain; (iii) to determine whether the addition of NP (through their direct or incidental application, i.e. biosolids) are likely to mobilize other environmental contaminants; (iv) to evaluate multiple stressor effects on simple measurements of soil productivity (i.e. soil enzyme activities) and bioavailability (i.e. biouptake to earthworms).