Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Sci Total Environ. 2016 Mar 1;545-546:67-76. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.12.100. Epub 2015 Dec 31.
Nano-silica, the engineered nanomaterial with one of the largest production volumes, has a wide range of applications in consumer products and industry. This study aimed to quantify the exposure of nano-silica to the environment and to assess its risk to surface waters. Concentrations were calculated for four environmental (air, soil, surface water, sediments) and two technical compartments (wastewater, solid waste) for the EU and Switzerland using probabilistic material flow modeling. The corresponding median concentration in surface water is predicted to be 0.12 μg/l in the EU (0.053-3.3 μg/l, 15/85% quantiles). The concentrations in sediments in the complete sedimentation scenario were found to be the largest among all environmental compartments, with a median annual increase of 0.43 mg/kg · y in the EU (0.19-12 mg/kg · y, 15/85% quantiles). Moreover, probabilistic species sensitivity distributions (PSSD) were computed and the risk of nano-silica in surface waters was quantified by comparing the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) with the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) distribution, which was derived from the cumulative PSSD. This assessment suggests that nano-silica currently poses no risk to aquatic organisms in surface waters. Further investigations are needed to assess the risk of nano-silica in other environmental compartments, which is currently not possible due to a lack of ecotoxicological data.
纳米二氧化硅是一种产量最大的工程纳米材料，在消费品和工业中有广泛的应用。本研究旨在量化纳米二氧化硅在环境中的暴露情况，并评估其对地表水的风险。使用概率物质流建模，针对欧盟和瑞士的四个环境（空气、土壤、地表水、沉积物）和两个技术（废水、固体废物）部分计算了浓度。预计欧盟地表水的中值浓度为 0.12μg/l（0.053-3.3μg/l，15/85%分位数）。在完整的沉降情景中，沉积物中的浓度被发现是所有环境部分中最大的，欧盟每年的中值浓度增加 0.43mg/kg·y（0.19-12mg/kg·y，15/85%分位数）。此外，还计算了概率物种敏感度分布（PSSD），并通过将预测的环境浓度（PEC）与累积 PSSD 得出的预测无影响浓度（PNEC）分布进行比较，对地表水纳米二氧化硅的风险进行了量化。这一评估表明，纳米二氧化硅目前对地表水生物没有风险。由于缺乏生态毒理学数据，目前无法对其他环境部分的纳米二氧化硅风险进行评估，需要进一步研究。
