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

尽管工程纳米材料具有增加可持续粮食生产的潜力，但与其使用相关的知识差距和固有风险仍然存在。迄今为止被忽视的一个特别影响是纳米材料对已经存在的污染物(和养分)的移动性和生物利用度的影响。这项研究的目的是为了更好地定量了解纳米材料在农业土壤中的相互作用、迁移和命运。这项工作的一个主要重点将是增加我们对纳米载体的理解，纳米载体用于改善农业土壤中农药的运输和靶向。此外，我们将确定NP与土壤中可能存在的污染物相互作用的潜力，潜在地增加它们在周围土壤和地下水中的移动性、浓度和生物有效性。通过更好地了解NP与农业土壤的重要相互作用，将有可能：(I)更好地针对农药的应用，以提高农业的可持续性；(Ii)为工程NP对食物链的风险提供一些重要的见解；(Iii)确定添加NP(通过其直接或附带应用，即生物固体)是否可能动员其他环境污染物；(Iv)评估对简单测量土壤生产力(即土壤酶活性)和生物有效性(即对蚯蚓的生物吸收)的多重压力影响。

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).