Toxicity, transformations and transport of engineered nanoparticles in soils: New approaches to detect and characterize environmental risks

纳米材料被用于制造油漆、涂料、化妆品和许多其他消费品。工程纳米颗粒(ENP)的许多其他应用正在出现或预计将在不久的将来出现，包括在农业应用中输送养分或杀虫剂。尽管纳米技术有望带来许多社会和经济利益，但最近在北美和欧洲发表的报告强调了与这场“纳米”革命相关的潜在环境和公共健康风险。ENP的一部分将最终进入自然环境(例如，由于意外泄漏或故意引入以修复土壤和地下水)。由于目前还没有针对这些新物质的具体法规，因此迫切需要更好地了解纳米技术对生态健康的影响，以便制定保护性法规，不对加拿大工业进行不公正的惩罚。为了充分评估环境风险，我们需要能够检测陆地生态系统中的ENP，并预测它们在这个复杂环境中的传输、持久性和生物有效性。这一战略项目旨在为监管机构和行业提供所需的新见解和工具，以评估和预测ENP在土壤中的迁移和转化，并评估其毒性。这项工作将包括两类ENP的研究：(I)无机纳米材料(nTiO2nZnO和NAG)和(Ii)用于植保的聚合物纳米胶囊(NCAP)。我们还建议建立基于基因组的方法来检测和定量这些ENP在复杂的土壤基质中。我们将产生的新的数据和机械模型将极大地提高我们对ENP环境风险的理解。在本项目中开发的模型可以与多准则决策分析和环境风险评估模型相联系。因此，在该项目中获得的知识将对ViveNano等加拿大行业具有重要的战略价值，并将为加拿大卫生部、加拿大环境部和加拿大农业和农业食品公司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健康。

Nanomaterials are used in the fabrication of paints, coatings, cosmetics, and many other consumer goods. Many other applications of engineered nanoparticles (ENP) are emerging or are expected in the near future, including delivery of nutrients or pesticides in agricultural applications. 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 ENP 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 ecological health, in order to set protective regulations that do not unjustly penalize Canadian industries. In the interest of fully assessing environmental risk, we need to be able to detect ENP in terrestrial ecosystems and predict their transport, persistence and bioavailability in this complex environment. This strategic project aims to provide regulators and industries with novel insights and tools needed to assess and predict the transport and transformations of ENP in soils, and to evaluate their toxicity. The work will include studies on two classes of ENP: (i) inorganic nanomaterials (nTiO2, nZnO, and nAg) and (ii) polymeric nanocapsules designed for crop protection applications (nCAP).We also propose to develop genomic based methods for detection and quantification of these ENP in the complex soil matrix. The novel data and mechanistic models that we will generate will greatly improve our understanding of the environmental risks of ENP. 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 such as ViveNano and will provide government agencies like Health Canada, Environment Canada, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with better decision frameworks and policies to protect human and ecosystem health.