Friday, April 21st: "Transformations of Manufactured Nanoparticles in Environmental and Biological Media"

Dr. Jamie Lead will present "Transformations of Manufactured Nanoparticles in Environmental and Biological Media"

Nanotechnology is an important underpinning technology platform, with beneficial impacts on a wide range of sectors. The use of manufactured nanoparticles is understood to lead to discharges to the environment with known increases in discharges and environmental concentrations occurring and likely to continue into the future. The concentrations are sufficiently high to cause potential risks to environmental and human health. However, once in the environment, the as-prepared nanoparticles undergo significant modification in complex environmental media. Transformations include dissolution, oxidation, sulfidation, aggregation/agglomeration, changes in surface coronas and microbial alterations. These changes lead to associated changes in fate and impacts of the nanoparticles. Selected examples of transformations will be discussed, along with possible effects on fate and impacts.