Nanoparticle Fate Assessment and Toxicity in the (Soil) Environment

A team from CEH (Wallingford & Lancaster) is coordinating (lead Dr Claus Svendsen) the EUP FPVII project, Nanoparticle Fate Assessment and Toxicity in the Environment (NanoFATE). This medium-size (~ 4 million Euro) multi-institute project has been conceived to fill knowledge and methodological gaps that currently impede the sound assessment of the environmental risks posed by engineered nanoparticles (ENPs).

The vision of NanoFATE is to assess fate and risk for ENPs from high-volume products for which recycling is not an option, namely: fuel additive, personal care and antibacterial products. Two market ENPs from each product (CeO2, ZnO, Ag) group of varying size, surface and core chemistries are being followed through their post-production life cycles – from environmental entry as “spent product”, through waste treatment to their final fate and potential for toxic effects. These studies are designed to test the applicability of current fate and risk assessment methods and identify improvements required for a scientific assessment of ENPs at an early stage.

The work plan of NanoFATE has been designed to progress through a series of focused workpackages. An important research component of the project in which CEH is directly involved (as well as providing overall guidance) is to understand the behaviour of nanoparticles in the environment and in particular the partitioning of nanoparticles between soil-applied sludge and effluent waters during wastewater processing.

By using modelling tools to predict environmental concentrations likely to occur as a result of direct nanoparticle release to terrestrial systems (e.g. when used as a diesel additive) and when sewage sludge is applied to land, estimates as to the concentrations of nanoparticles in soil that can be expected under different usage scenarios are being established. Studies conducted by CEH and our research partners on the uptake of particles by organisms and their acute and chronic toxic effects are then being used to provide fundamental answers regarding mechanisms of toxicity and also to provide effect concentrations for routine and spatially explicit risk assessments.

The NanoFATE Consortium