Department of Environmental Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2013 Jul;9(3):e15-26. doi: 10.1002/ieam.1446. Epub 2013 Jun 25.
Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) possess novel properties making them attractive for application in a wide spectrum of fields. These novel properties are not accounted for in the environmental risk assessment methods that the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) proposes in their guidance on environmental exposure estimation, although ENMs are already applied in a variety of consumer and industrial products. It is thus necessary to evaluate the guidance document REACH provides on environmental exposure estimation on its applicability to ENMs. This is most urgently the case for engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), as the novel properties are most often only applicable to them. The environmental fate of ENPs was reviewed and compared to the environmental fate of chemicals according to the REACH guidance. Major deviations between the fate of ENPs and predicted fate by REACH were found. They were related to at least 1 of 3 major assumptions made in REACH guidance: 1) in REACH, environmental alteration processes are all thought of as removal processes, whereas alterations of ENPs in the environment may greatly affect their properties, environmental effects, and behavior, 2) in REACH, chemicals are supposed to dissolve instantaneously and completely on release into the environment, whereas ENPs should be treated as nondissolved nanosized solids, and 3) in REACH, partitioning of dissolved chemicals to solid particles in air, water, and soil is estimated with thermodynamic equilibrium coefficients, but in the case of ENPs thermodynamic equilibrium between "dispersed" and "attached" states is generally not expected. The environmental exposure assessment of REACH therefore needs adjustment to cover the specific environmental fate of ENPs. Incorporation of the specific environmental fate processes of ENPs into the environmental risk assessment framework of REACH requires a pragmatic approach.
工程纳米材料（ENMs）具有独特的性质，使其在广泛的领域具有吸引力。这些新的性质并没有被列入《化学品注册、评估、授权和限制》（REACH）在其环境暴露估计指南中提出的环境风险评估方法中，尽管 ENMs 已经应用于各种消费和工业产品中。因此，有必要评估 REACH 提供的关于环境暴露估计的指导文件对 ENMs 的适用性。对于工程纳米颗粒（ENPs）来说，这是最紧迫的情况，因为这些新的性质通常只适用于它们。根据 REACH 指南，审查了 ENPs 的环境归宿，并将其与化学品的环境归宿进行了比较。发现 ENPs 的环境归宿与 REACH 预测的归宿之间存在重大偏差。这些偏差至少与 REACH 指南中的 3 个主要假设中的 1 个有关：1）在 REACH 中，环境改变过程都被认为是去除过程，而 ENPs 在环境中的改变可能会极大地影响它们的性质、环境影响和行为；2）在 REACH 中，释放到环境中的化学品应被认为是瞬间完全溶解的，而 ENPs 应被视为不溶解的纳米级固体；3）在 REACH 中，溶解的化学物质分配到空气、水和土壤中的固体颗粒是用热力学平衡系数来估计的，但在 ENPs 的情况下，“分散”和“附着”状态之间的热力学平衡通常是不期望的。因此，REACH 的环境暴露评估需要进行调整，以涵盖 ENPs 的特定环境归宿。将 ENPs 的特定环境归宿纳入 REACH 的环境风险评估框架需要采取务实的方法。
