Assessing the Environmental Costs and Benefits of Resource Recovery Approaches for Nanomaterials in Future Waste Streams

纳米材料（NM）通常被认为是具有一个或多个尺寸< 100 nm的材料。由于其极小的尺寸，纳米材料表现出与其“散装”化学品截然不同的特性。因此，这些新特性目前正被广泛用于各种产品，包括药品、化妆品、涂层材料、电子产品和催化剂，还有一些其他应用正在开发中，如使用、基因治疗、食品包装、先进轮胎、半导体和用于污染环境的生物修复。因此，纳米技术是材料制造业的一个非常快速增长的部门，已经占据了数十亿的市场，到2015年，这个市场预计将达到2万亿欧元。随着纳米技术部门规模的扩大，释放到废物流中的纳米物质的数量将增加，废物中纳米物质的类型可能会变得更加多样化。废物流中NM浓度的增加可能会影响某些废物处理方法的性能或最终用户对废物产品的接受程度。由于许多废物（例如动物粪便和泥浆、堆肥、污水污泥和厌氧污泥）作为肥料和土壤调理剂被应用于自然环境，因此向环境排放的纳米物质可能会增加，这可能会对环境中的生物体和自然环境提供的服务产生不利影响。许多NM是使用昂贵的低产率生产方法生产的，导致大量废物和/或由稀有元素制成，其中可用资源面临枯竭的威胁。制定回收纳米物质的方法可带来广泛的惠益，因为这些方法可开始解决资源枯竭问题，并将导致减少纳米物质向土壤和水体的排放，从而减少对环境的潜在影响和相关生态系统服务的提供。然而，虽然目前正在就纳米物质对环境和人类健康的危害开展大量工作，但就废物中的纳米物质以及从废物流中回收纳米物质的方法开展的工作有限。随着纳米技术部门的持续快速增长，因此有真实的需要了解与不同废物产品中的纳米材料对环境和生态系统服务的潜在风险，并制定回收和其他废物管理方法来控制这些风险。这一催化剂项目涉及来自学术界、商业界和政府部门的纳米技术、绿色化学、生物修复、环境化学、生态毒理学、生态学和环境经济学方面的主要专家，因此，该项目将综合有关2020年代废物流中纳米物质的性质和数量、这些纳米物质对环境健康的潜在影响的知识;以及从不同废物类型中回收纳米材料的潜在方法。该项目将包括详细审查文献和专家访谈以及专家讲习班。将举办一个利益攸关方研讨会，以促进最终用户参与项目。该项目的主要产出将是在一份影响力很大的期刊上发表文章，并提出一项高度创新的跨学科建议，提交给NERC供资方案的第二阶段。

Nanomaterials (NMs) are typically regarded as materials that have one or more dimension of < 100 nm in size. Due to their extremely small size, nanomaterials exhibit properties that are vastly different from their 'bulk' chemical. These novel properties are therefore currently being exploited in a wide range of products, including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, coating materials, electronic items and catalysts and a number of other applications are in the pipeline such as use, gene therapy, food packaging, advanced tyres, semiconductors and for use in bioremediation of contaminated environments. Nanotechnology is therefore a very rapidly growing sector of the material manufacturing industry that has already captured a multibillion market and by 2015 this market is forecast to be worth 2 trn Euro. As the nanotechnology sector increases in size, the amounts of NMs released to waste streams will increase and the types of NMs in waste are likely to become more diverse. Increases in NM concentrations in waste streams might affect the performance of some waste treatment methodologies or the acceptability of a waste product to an end user. As many waste products (e.g. animal manures and slurries, compost, sewage sludge and anaerobic digestate) are applied to the natural environment as fertilisers and soil conditioners, it is likely that emissions of NMs to the environment will increase and this could result in adverse impacts on organisms in the environment and on the services that the natural environment provides. Many of the NMs are produced using expensive, low yield production methods resulting in large volumes of waste and/or are made of rare elements where available resources are under threat of depletion. The development of approaches for recovery of NMs could offer a wide range of benefits in that they could begin to address the problem of resource depletion and would result in reduced emissions of NMs to soils and water bodies thus reducing potential impacts on the environment and the delivery of the associated ecosystem services. However, while a wealth of work is now being performed on the hazards of NMs to the environment and human health, limited work is being done on NMs in waste and on methods for recovery of NMs from waste streams. With the continued rapid growth of the nanotechnology sector, there is therefore a real need to understand the potential risks associated with NMs in different waste products to the environment and ecosystem service delivery and to develop recovery and other waste management approaches for controlling these risks. This catalyst project, involving leading experts in nanotechnology, green chemistry, bioremediation, environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology, ecology and environmental economics from the academic, business and government sectors, will therefore synthesise knowledge on the nature and amounts of NMs in waste streams in the 2020s, the potential impacts of these NMs on the health of the environment; and potential approaches for recovering NMs from different waste types. The project will involve a detailed review of the literature and expert interviews as well as an expert workshop. A stakeholder workshop will be staged to promote end user engagement in the project. The key outputs of the project will be a publication in a high impact journal and a highly innovative interdisciplinary proposal for submission to the second phase of the NERC funding programme.