Multimodal characterisation of nanomaterials in the environment

工程纳米材料（ENM）被发现在许多消费品中，包括化妆品和个人卫生用品。纳米材料也被发现用于柴油燃料的添加剂，以提高燃料效率。这些材料将与环境接触，例如，如果它们被冲下水槽，或者如果它们变成空气，但是我们目前不知道它们是否有害，也没有法规来控制它们的释放或处理。环境中的环境营养物质的生命周期尚不清楚，在这一领域存在着巨大的知识空白。其原因是，消费品中ENM的浓度和性质在很大程度上是未知的（或公司没有指出）。人们对污水和土壤中ENM的行为或寿命知之甚少，因为很难监测这种行为，因为我们没有在非常复杂的环境中检测这些微小材料的工具。该项目将应用新的和复杂的实验表征工具，用于预测与使用包含ZnO，Ag，TiO 2和CeO 2 ENM的选定消费品相关的潜在环境风险。首要目标是评估哪些是ENM的关键特征（大小，化学等）。这可能通过两种最主要的环境途径--从废水处理厂的流出物到沃茨以及从污水污泥到土壤--对环境造成损害。这些信息最终将为监管机构提供政策指导，并为工业界提供如何设计“安全”的ENM类别和减轻风险的指导，同时避免过度监管。避免过度监管是至关重要的，因为我们不想再次经历福岛核电站的情况，那里有16万人被迫在没有必要的情况下搬迁，因为监管机构和政府面临的风险太高。自那以来，这已导致1 599人死亡，因为流离失所的居民正遭受健康问题、酗酒和高自杀率的困扰。我们的团队在开发独特的技术以在复杂的环境中跟踪这些纳米材料方面有着广泛的记录，并将运用他们在这一领域的知识来解决这一极其相关的问题。该项目的实验方法包括物理科学实验和毒理学方法，产生的结果，以改善我们对潜在的环境危害的有限的理解。该项目产生的结果还将有助于我们对环境纳米物质的归宿、运输、生物利用度和生态毒性的各个方面的非常有限的知识，并将使我们能够回答诸如“环境纳米物质的毒性剂量是否能到达生物体，或者在接触生物体时这些浓度是否可以忽略不计？“，“如果它们有毒，是否有可能重新设计ENM，使其不存在风险”，“纳米材料是否会溶解或改变其在环境中的化学性质并最终解毒，以及不同纳米材料之间的差异如何？“，“哪些纳米材料存在最大的风险，以及我们如何在没有过度预防性法规的情况下最大限度地减少这些危险材料的环境和健康风险”。这一多方面的战略将在了解环境中ENM的命运方面取得重大进展，以指导政策监管，同时避免不必要的过度监管，并最终指导这些材料的安全开发，以供未来的商业开发。

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are found in many consumer products including cosmetics and personal hygiene goods. Nanomaterials are also found in additives for diesel fuels to improve fuel efficiency. These materials will come into contact with the environment, for example, if they are washed down the sink, or if they become airbourne, however we currently have no idea about whether they are hazardous or not and regulations are not in place to control their release or treatment. The life cycle of ENMs in the environment is not known and there exist large knowledge gaps in this field. The reason for this is that the concentrations and properties of ENMs in consumer products are largely unknown (or not indicated bycompanies). Very little is known about the behaviour or lifetime of ENMs in the water effluent and soils as it's extremely hard to monitor this behaviour, as we do not have the tools to detect these tiny materials in very complex environments. This project will apply new and sophisticated experimental characterization tools for predicting potential environmental risks associated with the use of selected consumer products incorporating ZnO, Ag, TiO2 and CeO2 ENMs. An overarching goal is to evaluate which are the critical charateristics of ENMs (size, chemistry etc.) which may cause damage to the environment through two of the most predominant environmental pathways - from the effluent of a waste water treatment plant to waters and also from sewage sludge to soils. This information will ultimately to provide guidance to regulators on policy and to industry about how to design "safe" classes of ENMs and mitigate against risk, while avoiding overregulation. Avoiding overregulation is vital, as we do not want to re-experience what happened e.g. at Fukushima, where 160,000 people were forced to relocated without need, since the risk presented to regulators and the government was too high. This has since resulted in 1,599 deaths, as the displaced residents are suffering from health problems, alcoholism and high rates of suicide.Our team has an extensive track record in developing unique techniques to track these nanomaterials in complex environments and will apply their knowledge of this field to tackle this extremely pertinent concern. The projects experimental approaches include both physical science experiments and toxicological approaches, generating results to improve our limited understanding of the potential environmental hazards. The results generated from the project will also contribute to our very limited knowledge on various aspects of the fate, transport, bioavailability, and ecotoxicity of ENMs and will allow us to answer questions such as "can toxic doses of ENMs reach organisms or are these concentrations negligible at the point of exposure to the organism?", "if they are toxic, is it possible to re-engineer ENMs such that they do not present a risk", "do the nanomaterials dissolve or change their chemistry in the environment and ultimately detoxify and how does this vary between the different nanomaterials?", "which nanomaterials present the greatest risk and how do we minimise the environmental and health risks of these hazardous materials without overly precautionary regulations". This multifaceted strategy will make a major development in understanding the fate of ENMs in the environment to guide policy regulation whilst avoiding unnecessary overregulation, and ultimately guide the safe development of these materials for future commercial exploitation.