Chapter 28: Nanotoxicology

Introduction

Since the classic talk by Richard Feynman (1959) entitled “There Is Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” nanotechnology has grown to a multibillion dollar industry worldwide, with 1300 nanotechnology-enabled products in commercial use by 2010 (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2012). The potential of adverse effects from exposure to “nanophase materials” was already pointed out earlier (Oberdörster and Ferin, 1992; Oberdörster et al., 1992), and concerns about human and environmental health and safety of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) were initially raised in 2003 (Colvin, 2003). Since then, toxicity of high volume, commercial nanomaterials including nanosilver, fullerenes, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been summarized in several reviews (Borm et al., 2006; Nel et al., 2006; Donaldson et al., 2004; Boczkowski and Hoet, 2009; Krug and Wick, 2011; Kunzmann et al., 2011). New ENMs and composites are continually emerging with potential for significant commercial applications in energy generation, environmental sensing and remediation, aerospace and defense, and medical diagnosis and therapy. Examples of nanoscale materials of different shapes and sizes are depicted in Fig. 28-1. Investigation of the magnitude of release of manufactured nanomaterials and their subsequent fate, transport, transformation, and potential for human and environmental exposure and toxicity (Fig. 28-2) is an urgent priority (Mueller and Nowack, 2008).

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI, http://www.nano.gov/) defines nanotechnology as the understanding and control of matter at the nanoscale at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nm, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Roco (2005) defined the sizes as ranging from the intermediate length scale between a single atom or molecule and ...