Tools to measure and model the transport, transformations and toxicity of engineered nanoparticles in terrestrial ecosystems

纳米材料被用于制造油漆、涂料、化妆品和许多其他消费品。预计在不久的将来，纳米材料将用于医疗和检测系统、能源生产和环境修复等许多其他应用。预计到2015年，全球“纳米”产品市场将超过1万亿美元。尽管纳米技术有望带来许多社会和经济效益，但最近在北美和欧洲发表的报告强调了与这种“纳米”革命相关的潜在环境和公共卫生风险。一部分人造纳米材料将最终进入自然环境（例如，由于意外泄漏或故意引入土壤和地下水修复）。由于没有处理这些新物质的具体条例，因此迫切需要更好地了解纳米技术对环境健康的后果，以便制定保护性规则和条例，使加拿大的工业不会受到不公正的惩罚。为了充分评估环境风险，我们需要能够预测工程纳米颗粒在陆地生态系统中的运输、持久性和生物利用度。该战略项目旨在为监管机构和行业提供新的见解和工具，以评估和预测工程纳米颗粒在土壤中的迁移和转化，并评估其毒性。我们建议在参数化良好的系统中评估这些过程，并用数学模型描述关键机制。新的数据和机制模型将大大提高我们对工程纳米颗粒环境风险的理解。我们将检查模型条件，但也有大量的不同性质的加拿大土壤。本项目建立的模型可与多准则决策分析和环境风险评价模型相结合。因此，在这个项目中获得的知识将对加拿大的工业具有重大的战略价值，并将为加拿大卫生部和加拿大环境部等政府机构提供更好的决策框架和政策，以保护人类和生态系统的健康。

Nanomaterials are used in the fabrication of paints, coatings, cosmetics, and many other consumer goods. Many other applications of nanomaterials are expected in the near future, for medical treatment and detection systems, energy production and environmental remediation. It is anticipated that by 2015, the global market for "nano" products will exceed US$1 trillion. Although nanotechnologies promise many social and economic benefits, recent reports published in North America and Europe underline the potential environmental and public health risks linked to this "nano" revolution. A portion of manufactured nanomaterials will end up in the natural environment (e.g., as a result of accidental spills or deliberately introduced for soil and groundwater remediation). As there are no specific regulations to deal with these novel substances, there is an urgent need to better understand the consequences of nanotechnology on environmental health, in order to set protective rules and regulations that do not unjustly penalize Canadian industries. In the interest of fully assessing environmental risk, we need to be able to predict the transport, persistence and bioavailability of engineered nanoparticles in terrestrial ecosystems. This strategic project aims to provide regulators and industries with novel insights and tools needed to assess and predict the transport and transformations of engineered nanoparticles in soils, and to evaluate their toxicity. We propose to evaluate these processes in well-parameterized systems and describe the key mechanisms with mathematical models. The novel data and mechanistic models will greatly improve our understanding of the environmental risks of engineered nanoparticles. We will examine both model conditions but also a large number of Canadian soils of varying properties. The models developed during this project can be linked with multi-criteria decision analysis and environmental risk assessment models. Hence, the knowledge acquired during this project will be of great strategic value to Canadian industries and will provide government agencies like Health Canada and Environment Canada with better decision frameworks and policies to protect human and ecosystem health.