Tag Archives: titanium dioxide

Masdar Institute and rainmaking

Leave a reply

Water security, of course, is a key issue and of particular concern in many parts of the world including the Middle East. (In the Pacific Northwest, an area described as a temperate rain forest, there tends to be less awareness but even we are sometimes forced to ration water.) According to a July 5, 2017 posting by Bhok Thompson (on the Green Prophet website) scientists at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates [UA]E) have applied for a patent on a new technique for rainmaking,

Umbrella sales in the UAE may soon see a surge in pricing. Researchers at the Masdar Institute have filed for a provisional patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for their discovery – and innovative cloud seeding material that moves them closer to their goal of producing rain on demand. It appears to be a more practical approach than building artificial mountains.

Dr. Linda Zou is leading the project. A professor of chemical and environmental engineering, she is one of the first scientists to explore nanotechnology to enhance a cloud seeding material’s ability to produce rain. By filing a patent, the team is paving a way to commercialize their discovery, and aligning with Masdar Institute’s aim to position the UAE as a world leader in science and tech, specifically in the realm of environmental sustainability.

A January 31, 2017 posting by Erica Solomon for the Masdar Institute reveals more about the project,

The Masdar Institute research team that was one of the inaugural recipients of the US$ 5 million grant from the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science last year has made significant progress in their work as evidenced by the filing a provisional patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

By filing a patent on their innovative cloud seeding material, the research team is bringing the material in the pathway for commercialization, thereby supporting Masdar Institute’s goal of bolstering the United Arab Emirates’ local intellectual property, which is a key measure of the country’s innovation drive. It also signifies a milestone towards achieving greater water security in the UAE, as rainfall enhancement via cloud seeding can potentially increase rainfall between 10% to 30%, helping to refresh groundwater reserves, boost agricultural production, and reduce the country’s heavy reliance on freshwater produced by energy-intensive seawater desalination.

Masdar Institute Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Linda Zou, is the principal investigator of this research project, and one of the first scientists in the world to explore the use of nanotechnology to enhance a cloud seeding material’s ability to produce rain.
…

“Using nanotechnology to accelerate water droplet formation on a typical cloud seeding material has never been researched before. It is a new approach that could revolutionize the development of cloud seeding materials and make them significantly more efficient and effective,” Dr. Zou remarked.

…

Conventional cloud seeding materials are small particles such as pure salt crystals, dry ice and silver iodide. These tiny particles, which are a few microns (one-thousandth of a millimeter) in size, act as the core around which water condenses in the clouds, stimulating water droplet growth. Once the air in the cloud reaches a certain level of saturation, it can no longer hold in that moisture, and rain falls. Cloud seeding essentially mimics what naturally occurs in clouds, but enhances the process by adding particles that can stimulate and accelerate the condensation process.

Dr. Zou and her collaborators, Dr. Mustapha Jouiad, Principal Research Scientist in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nabil El Hadri and PhD student Haoran Liang, explored ways to improve the process of condensation on a pure salt crystal by layering it with a thin coating of titanium dioxide.

The extremely thin coating measures around 50 nanometers, which is more than one thousand times thinner than a human hair. Despite the coating’s miniscule size, the titanium dioxide’s effect on the salt’s condensation efficiency is significant. Titanium dioxide is a hydrophilic photocatalyst, which means that when in contact with water vapor in the cloud, it helps to initiate and sustain the water vapor adsorption and condensation on the nanoparticle’s surface. This important property of the cloud seeding material speeds up the formation of large water droplets for rainfall.

Dr. Zou’s team found that the titanium dioxide coating improved the salt’s ability to adsorb and condense water vapor over 100 times compared to a pure salt crystal. Such an increase in condensation efficiency could improve a cloud’s ability to produce more precipitation, making rain enhancement operations more efficient and effective. The research will now move to the next stage of simulated cloud and field testing in the future.

…

Dr. Zou’s research grant covers two more years of research. During this time, her team will continue to study different design concepts and structures for cloud seeding materials inspired by nanotechnology.

To give you a sense of the urgent need for these technologies, here’s the title from my Aug. 24, 2015 posting, The Gaza is running out of water by 2016 if the United Nations predictions are correct. I’ve not come across any updates on the situation in the Gaza Strip but both Israel and Palestine have recently signed a deal concerning water. Dalia Hatuqa’s August 2017 feature on the water deal for Al Jazeera is critical primarily of Israel (as might be expected) but there are one or two subtle criticisms of Palestine too,

…

Critics have also warned that the plan does not address Israeli restrictions on Palestinian access to water and the development of infrastructure needed to address the water crisis in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians in the West Bank consume only 70 litres of water per capita per day, well below what the World Health Organization recommends as a minimum (100).

In the most vulnerable communities in Area C – those not connected to the water network – that number further drops to 20, according to EWASH, a coalition of Palestinian and international organisations working on water and sanitation in the Palestinian territories.

…

The recent bilateral agreement, which does not increase the Palestinians’ quota of water in the Jordan River, makes an untenable situation permanent and guarantees Israel a lion’s share of its water, thus reinforcing the status quo, Buttu [Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team] said.

“They have moved away from the idea that water is a shared resource and instead adopted the approach that Israel controls and allocates water to Palestinians,” she added. “Israel has been selling water to Palestinians for a long time, but this is enshrining it even further by saying that this is the way to alleviate the water problem.”

…

Israeli officials say that water problems in the territories could have been addressed had the Palestinians attended the meetings of the joint committee. Palestinians attribute their refusal to conditions set by their counterparts, namely that they must support Israeli settlement water projects for any Palestinian water improvements to be approved.

According to Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon, “There are many things to be done together to upgrade the water infrastructure in the PA. We are talking about old, leaking pipes, and a more rational use of water.” He also pointed to the illegal tapping into pipes, which he maintained Palestinians did because they did not want to pay for water. “This is something we’ve been wanting to do over the years, and the new water agreement is one of the ways to deal with that. The new agreement … is not only about water quotas; it’s also about more coherent and better use of water, in order to address the needs of the Palestinians.”

But water specialists say that the root cause of the problem is not illegal activity, but the unavailability of water resources to Palestinians and the mismanagement and diversion of the Jordan River.

…

Access to water is gong to be of increasing urgency should temperatures continue to rise as they have. In many parts of the world, potable water is not easy to find and if temperatures continue to rise areas that did have some water security will lose it and the potential for conflict rises hugely. Palestine and Israel may be a harbinger of what’s to come. As for the commodification of water, I have trouble accepting it; I think everyone has a right to water.

Findings on oral exposure to nanoscale titanium dioxide

Leave a reply

It’s been a while since I’ve run a piece on health concerns and nanoparticles. The nanoparticles in question are titanium dioxide and the concerns centre on oral exposure to them according to a Jan. 24, 2017 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers from INRA [French National Institute for Agricultural Research] and their partners have studied the effects of oral exposure to titanium dioxide, an additive (E171) commonly used in foodstuffs, especially confectionary. They have shown for the first time that E171 crosses the intestinal barrier in animals and reaches other parts of the body.

Immune system disorders linked to the absorption of the nanoscale fraction of E171 particles were observed. The researchers also showed that chronic oral exposure to the additive spontaneously induced preneoplastic lesions in the colon, a non-malignant stage of carcinogenesis, in 40% of exposed animals.

Moreover, E171 was found to accelerate the development of lesions previously induced for experimental purposes. While the findings show that the additive plays a role in initiating and promoting the early stages of colorectal carcinogenesis, they cannot be extrapolated to humans or more advanced stages of the disease. [emphasis mine]

A Jan. 20, 2017 IINRA press release, which originated the news item,  provides more detail about European use of titanium dioxide as a food additive and about the research,

Present in many products including cosmetics, sunscreens, paint and building materials, titanium dioxide (or TiO2), known as E171 in Europe, is also widely used as an additive in the food industry to whiten or give opacity to products. It is commonly found in sweets, chocolate products, biscuits, chewing gum and food supplements, as well as in toothpaste and pharmaceutical products. Composed of micro- and nanoparticles, E171 is nevertheless not labelled a “nanomaterial”, since it does not contain more than 50% of nanoparticles (in general it contains from 10-40%). The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluated the risk of exposure to titanium dioxide by inhalation (occupational exposure), resulting in a Group 2B classification, reserved for potential carcinogens for humans.

Today, oral exposure to E171 is a concern, especially in children who tend to eat a lot of sweets. INRA researchers studied the product as a whole (that is, its mixed composition of micro- and nanoparticules), and have also evaluated the effect of the nanoscale particle fraction alone, by comparing it to a model nanoparticle.

Titanium dioxide crosses the intestinal barrier and passes into the bloodstream

The researchers exposed rats orally to a dose of 10mg of E171 per kilogram of body weight per day, similar to the exposure humans experience through food consumption (data from European Food Safety Agency, September 20162). They showed for the first time in vivo that titanium dioxide is absorbed by the intestine and passes into the bloodstream. Indeed, the researchers found titanium dioxide particles in the animals’ livers.

Titanium dioxide alters intestinal and systemic immune response

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles were present in the lining of the small intestine and in the colon, and entered the nuclei of the immune cells of Peyer’s patches, which induce immune response in the intestine. The researchers showed an imbalance in immune response, ranging from a defect in the production of cytokines in Peyer’s patches to the development of micro-inflammation in colon mucosa. In the spleen, representative of systemic immunity, exposure to E171 increases the capacity of immune cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines when they are activated in vitro.

Chronic oral exposure to titanium dioxide plays a role in initiating and promoting early stages of colorectal carcinogenesis

The researchers exposed rats to regular oral doses of titanium dioxide through drinking water for 100 days. In a group of rats previously treated with an experimental carcinogen, exposure to TiO2 led to an increase in the size of preneoplastic lesions. In a group of healthy rats exposed to E171, four out of eleven spontaneously developed preneoplastic lesions in the intestinal epithelium. Non-exposed animals presented no anomalies at the end of the 100-day study. These results indicate that E171 both initiates and promotes the early stages of colorectal carcinogenesis in animals.

These studies show for the first time that the additive E171 is a source of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in the intestine and the entire body, with consequences for both immune function and the development of preneoplastic lesions in the colon. These first findings justify a carcinogenesis study carried out under OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] guidelines to continue observations at a later stage of cancer. They provide new data for evaluating the risks of the E171 additive in humans.

These studies were carried out within the framework of the Nanogut project, financed by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) within the French national programme for research related to the environment, health and the workplace (PNR EST) and coordinated by INRA. Sarah Bettini’s university thesis contract was financed by the French laboratory of excellence LabEx SERENADE.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Food-grade TiO2 impairs intestinal and systemic immune homeostasis, initiates preneoplastic lesions and promotes aberrant crypt development in the rat colon by Sarah Bettini, Elisa Boutet-Robinet, Christel Cartier, Christine Coméra, Eric Gaultier, Jacques Dupuy, Nathalie Naud, Sylviane Taché, Patrick Grysan, Solenn Reguer, Nathalie Thieriet, Matthieu Réfrégiers, Dominique Thiaudière, Jean-Pierre Cravedi, Marie Carrière, Jean-Nicolas Audinot, Fabrice H. Pierre, Laurence Guzylack-Piriou, & Eric Houdeau. Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 40373 (2017) doi:10.1038/srep40373 Published online: 20 January 2017

This paper is open access.

The research is concerning but they don’t want to draw any conclusions yet, which explains the recommendation for further research.

Nanoscale snowman and Season’s Greetings

Leave a reply

It’s being described as a ‘jeweled nano-snowman’ but platinum and titanium aren’t my idea of jewels. Still, it’s a cheerful, seasonal greeting.

Courtesy of the University of Birmingham Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory

Courtesy of the University of Birmingham Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory

A December 22, 2015 news item on Nanowerk tells more of the story,

Would a jewel-encrusted snowman make the perfect Christmas present? At only 5 nanometres in size, the price might be lower than you think. And it’s functional too, catalysing the splitting of water to make green hydrogen for fuel cells.

A December 22, 2015 University of Birmingham Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory (NPRL) press release, which originated the news item, provides more detail,

The nanoparticle, as imaged with an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope, features eyes, nose and mouth of precious-metal platinum clusters embedded in a titanium dioxide face. Each platinum cluster typically contains 30 platinum atoms; within the whole nanoparticle there are approximately 1,680 titanium atoms and 180 platinum atoms. The nano-snowman formed spontaneously from a self-assembled platinum-titanium nanoparticle which was oxidised in air, drawing the titanium atoms out to the surface. The self-assembly occurred in a gas phase, cluster beam condensation source, before size-selection with a mass spectrometer and deposition onto a carbon surface for oxidation and then imaging. The mass of the snowman is 120,000 atomic mass units. Compared with a more conventional pure platinum catalyst particle, the inclusion of the titanium atoms offers two potential benefits: dilution of how much precious platinum is needed to perform the catalysis, and protection of the platinum cores against sintering (i.e. aggregation of the nanoparticles). The shell is porous enough to allow hydrogen through and the particles are functional in the hydrogen evolution reaction. The research was performed at the Nanoscale Physics Research Lab by Caroline Blackmore and Ross Griffin. …

The scientists did a little bit of work adding colour (most of these images are gray on gray), as well as, the holly and berry frame.

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année or Season’s Greetings!

Cute, adorable roundworms help measure nanoparticle toxicity

Leave a reply
Caption: Low-cost experiments to test the toxicity of nanomaterials focused on populations of roundworms. Rice University scientists were able to test 20 nanomaterials in a short time, and see their method as a way to determine which nanomaterials should undergo more extensive testing. Credit: Zhong Lab/Rice University

Caption: Low-cost experiments to test the toxicity of nanomaterials focused on populations of roundworms. Rice University scientists were able to test 20 nanomaterials in a short time, and see their method as a way to determine which nanomaterials should undergo more extensive testing.
Credit: Zhong Lab/Rice University

Until now, ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’ are not words I would have associated with worms of any kind or with Rice University, for that matter. It’s amazing what a single image can do, eh?

A Feb. 3, 2015 news item on Azonano describes how roundworms have been used in research investigating the toxicity of various kinds of nanoparticles,

The lowly roundworm is the star of an ambitious Rice University project to measure the toxicity of nanoparticles.

The low-cost, high-throughput study by Rice scientists Weiwei Zhong and Qilin Li measures the effects of many types of nanoparticles not only on individual organisms but also on entire populations.

A Feb. 2, 2015 Rice University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more details about the research,

The Rice researchers tested 20 types of nanoparticles and determined that five, including the carbon-60 molecules (“buckyballs”) discovered at Rice in 1985, showed little to no toxicity.

Others were moderately or highly toxic to Caenorhabditis elegans, several generations of which the researchers observed to see the particles’ effects on their health.

The results were published by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Sciences and Technology. They are also available on the researchers’ open-source website.

“Nanoparticles are basically new materials, and we don’t know much about what they will do to human health and the health of the ecosystem,” said Li, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and of materials science and nanoengineering. “There have been a lot of publications showing certain nanomaterials are more toxic than others. So before we make more products that incorporate these nanomaterials, it’s important that we understand we’re not putting anything toxic into the environment or into consumer products.

“The question is, How much cost can we bear?” she said. “It’s a long and expensive process to do a thorough toxicological study of any chemical, not just nanomaterials.” She said that due to the large variety of nanomaterials being produced at high speed and at such a large scale, there is “an urgent need for high-throughput screening techniques to prioritize which to study more extensively.”

Rice’s pilot study proves it is possible to gather a lot of toxicity data at low cost, said Zhong, an assistant professor of biosciences, who has performed extensive studies on C. elegans, particularly on their gene networks. Materials alone for each assay, including the worms and the bacteria they consumed and the culture media, cost about 50 cents, she said.

The researchers used four assays to see how worms react to nanoparticles: fitness, movement, growth and lifespan. The most sensitive assay of toxicity was fitness. In this test, the researchers mixed the nanoparticles in solutions with the bacteria that worms consume. Measuring how much bacteria they ate over time served as a measure of the worms’ “fitness.”

“If the worms’ health is affected by the nanoparticles, they reproduce less and eat less,” Zhong said. “In the fitness assay, we monitor the worms for a week. That is long enough for us to monitor toxicity effects accumulated through three generations of worms.” C. elegans has a life cycle of about three days, and since each can produce many offspring, a population that started at 50 would number more than 10,000 after a week. Such a large number of tested animals also enabled the fitness assay to be highly sensitive.

The researchers’ “QuantWorm” system allowed fast monitoring of worm fitness, movement, growth and lifespan. In fact, monitoring the worms was probably the least time-intensive part of the project. Each nanomaterial required specific preparation to make sure it was soluble and could be delivered to the worms along with the bacteria. The chemical properties of each nanomaterial also needed to be characterized in detail.

The researchers studied a representative sampling of three classes of nanoparticles: metal, metal oxides and carbon-based. “We did not do polymeric nanoparticles because the type of polymers you can possibly have is endless,” Li explained.

They examined the toxicity of each nanoparticle at four concentrations. Their results showed C-60 fullerenes, fullerol (a fullerene derivative), titanium dioxide, titanium dioxide-decorated nanotubes and cerium dioxide were the least damaging to worm populations.

Their “fitness” assay confirmed dose-dependent toxicity for carbon black, single- and multiwalled carbon nanotubes, graphene, graphene oxide, gold nanoparticles and fumed silicon dioxide.

They also determined the degree to which surface chemistry affected the toxicity of some particles. While amine-functionalized multiwalled nanotubes proved highly toxic, hydroxylated nanotubes had the least toxicity, with significant differences in fitness, body length and lifespan.

A complete and interactive toxicity chart for all of the tested materials is available online.

Zhong said the method could prove its worth as a rapid way for drug or other companies to narrow the range of nanoparticles they wish to put through more expensive, dedicated toxicology testing.

“Next, we hope to add environmental variables to the assays, for example, to mimic ultraviolet exposure or river water conditions in the solution to see how they affect toxicity,” she said. “We also want to study the biological mechanism by which some particles are toxic to worms.”

Here’s a citation for the paper and links to the paper and to the researchers’ website,

A multi-endpoint, high-throughput study of nanomaterial toxicity in Caenorhabditis elegans by Sang-Kyu Jung, Xiaolei Qu, Boanerges Aleman-Meza, Tianxiao Wang, Celeste Riepe, Zheng Liu, Qilin Li, and Weiwei Zhong. Environ. Sci. Technol., Just Accepted Manuscript DOI: 10.1021/es5056462 Publication Date (Web): January 22, 2015
Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

Nanomaterial effects on C. elegans

Home | Download | Tutorial | About

This heat map indicates whether a measurement for the nanomaterial-exposed worms is higher (yellow), or lower (blue) than the control worms. Black indicates no effects from nanomaterial exposure.

Clicking on colored blocks to see detailed experimental data.

The published paper is open access but you need an American Chemical Society site registration to access it. The researchers’ site is open access.

Combining bacteriorhodopsin with semiconducting nanoparticles to generate hydrogen

Leave a reply

Scientists at the US Argonne National Laboratory have created a hybrid bio-assisted photocatalyst according to a July 19, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

A protein found in the membranes of ancient microorganisms that live in desert salt flats could offer a new way of using sunlight to generate environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, according to a new study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne nanoscientist Elena Rozhkova and her colleagues combined a pigment called bacteriorhodopsin with semiconducting nanoparticles to create a system that uses light to spark a catalytic process that creates hydrogen fuel.

Before getting to the new hybrid the story starts with nano titanium dioxide (from the July 16, 2013 Argonne National Laboratory press release, which originated the news item),

Scientists have been aware of the potential of titanium dioxide nanoparticles for light-based reactions since the early 1970s, when Japanese researchers discovered that a titanium dioxide electrode exposed to bright ultraviolet light could split water molecules in a phenomenon that came to be known as the Honda-Fujishima effect. Since then, scientists have made continuous efforts to extend the light reactivity of titanium dioxide photocatalysts into the visible part of the spectrum. The promise of these photocatalysts prompted scientists to experiment with different modifications to their basic chemistry in hope of making the reaction more efficient, Rozhkova said.

“Titanium dioxide alone reacts with ultraviolet light, but not with visible light, so we used biological photoreactive molecules as a building block to create a hybrid system that could use visible light efficiently,” Rozhkova said.

Rozhkova and her colleagues turned to bacteriorhodopsin – which is responsible for the unusual purple color of a number of salt flats in California and Nevada – because it uses sunlight as an energy source that allows it to act as a “proton pump.”  Proton pumps are proteins that typically straddle a cellular membrane and transfer protons from inside the cell to the extracellular space.

Here’s an image of the purple membrane caused by bacteriorhodopsin (from University of Bari [Italy] Professor Angela Correlli’s webpage of Photorecptors and Olfactory Receptors,

Bacteriorhodopsin is the only protein of purple membranes, which contains few different lipids. [downloaded from the University of Bari: http://www.biologia.uniba.it/fisiologia/corcelli/en/ric2.html]

Bacteriorhodopsin is the only protein of purple membranes, which contains few different lipids. [downloaded from the University of Bari: http://www.biologia.uniba.it/fisiologia/corcelli/en/ric2.html]

The press release goes on to describe the hybrid system,

In the Argonne system, the protons provided by the bacteriorhodopsin are combined with free electrons at small platinum sites interspersed in the titanium dioxide matrix. “The platinum nanoparticles are essential for creating a distinct spot for the production of the hydrogen molecule,” said Peng Wang, an Argonne postdoctoral researcher in Rozhkova’s group at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials.

“It is interesting that in biology, bacteriorhodopsin does not naturally participate in these kind of reactions,” Rozhkova said. “Its natural function really doesn’t have much to do at all with creating hydrogen. But as part of this hybrid, it helps make hydrogen under white light and at environmentally friendly conditions.”

This bio-assisted hybrid photocatalyst outperforms many other similar systems in hydrogen generation and could be a good candidate for fabrication of green energy devices that consume virtually infinite sources — salt water and sunlight.

You can find the published paper with the link below,

High-Performance Bioassisted Nanophotocatalyst for Hydrogen Production by Shankar Balasubramanian, Peng Wang, Richard D. Schaller, Tijana Rajh, and Elena A. Rozhkova. Nano Lett., 2013, 13 (7), pp 3365–3371 DOI: 10.1021/nl4016655 Publication Date (Web): June 19, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

The paper is behind a paywall.

*The head for this posting was corrected from Combining bacteriorhodopsin with semiconduction nanopartcles to generate hydrogen to Combining bacteriorhodopsin with semiconductor nanoparticles to generate hydrogen on July 22, 2013 at 3:03 pm PDT.

** I changed the head for this posting again from ‘semiconductor’ to ‘semiconducting’ on July 23, 2013 at 6:50 am PDT.

You probably can’t poison yourself by eating too many nanoparticles

Leave a reply

Researchers, Ingrid Bergin in the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Frank Witzmann in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, at Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis, have stated that ingesting food and beverage (translated by me from the more scientific description) with nanoparticles (at today’s current levels) is unlikely to prove toxic. A June 26, 2013 Inderscience news release on EurekAlert describes the researchers’ research and their conclusions,

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, researchers have compared existing laboratory and experimental animal studies pertaining to the toxicity of nanoparticles most likely to be intentionally or accidentally ingested. Based on their review, the researchers determined ingestion of nanoparticles at likely exposure levels is unlikely to cause health problems, at least with respect to acute toxicity. Furthermore, in vitro laboratory testing, which often shows toxicity at a cellular level, does not correspond well with in vivo testing, which tends to show less adverse effects.

Ingrid Bergin in the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Frank Witzmann in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, at Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis, explain that the use of particles that are in the nano size range (from 1 billionth to 100 billionths of a meter in diameter, 1-100 nm, other thereabouts) are finding applications in consumer products and medicine. These include particles such as nano-silver, which is increasingly used in consumer products and dietary supplements for its purported antimicrobial properties. Nanoparticles can have some intriguing and useful properties because they do not necessarily behave in the same chemical and physical ways as non-nanoparticle versions of the same material.

Nanoparticles are now used as natural flavor enhancers in the form of liposomes and related materials, food pigments and in some so-called “health supplements”. They are also used in antibacterial toothbrushes coated with silver nanoparticles, for instance in food and drink containers and in hygienic infant feeding equipment. They are also used to carry pharmaceuticals to specific disease sites in the body to reduce side effects. Nanoparticles actually encompass a very wide range of materials from pure metals and alloys, to metal oxide nanoparticles, and carbon-based and plastic nanoparticles. Because of their increasing utilization in consumer products, there has been concern over whether these small scale materials could have unique toxicity effects when compared to more traditional versions of the same materials.

Difficulties in assessing the health risks of nanoparticles include the fact that particles of differing materials and shapes can have different properties. Furthermore, the route of exposure (e.g. ingestion vs. inhalation) affects the likelihood of toxicity. The U.S. researchers evaluated the current literature specifically with respect to toxicity of ingested nanoparticles. They point out that, in addition to intentional ingestion as with dietary supplements, unintentional ingestion can occur due to nanoparticle presence in water or as a breakdown product from coated consumer goods. Inhaled nanoparticles also represent an ingestion hazard since they are coughed up, swallowed, and eliminated through the intestinal tract.

Based on their review, the team concludes that, “Ingested nanoparticles appear unlikely to have acute or severe toxic effects at typical levels of exposure.” Nevertheless, they add that the current literature is inadequate to assess whether nanoparticles can accumulate in tissues and have long-term effects or whether they might cause subtle alterations in gut microbial populations. The researchers stress that better methods are needed for correlating particle concentrations used for cell-based assessment of toxicity with the actual likely exposure levels to body cells. Such methods may lead to better predictive value for laboratory in vitro testing, which currently over-predicts toxicity of ingested nanoparticles as compared to in vivo testing.

The researchers focused specifically on ingestion via the gastrointestinal tract which I take to mean that they focused largely on nanoparticles in food (eaten) and liquid (swallowed).

Here’s a link to and citation for the paper,

Nanoparticle toxicity by the gastrointestinal route: evidence and knowledge gaps by Ingrid L. Bergin; Frank A. Witzmann.  Int. J. of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 2013 Vol.3, No.1/2, pp.163 – 210.  DOI: 10.1504/IJBNN.2013.054515

I think the abstract further helps to understand the research focus,

The increasing interest in nanoparticles for advanced technologies, consumer products, and biomedical applications has led to great excitement about potential benefits but also concern over the potential for adverse human health effects. The gastrointestinal tract represents a likely route of entry for many nanomaterials, both directly through intentional ingestion or indirectly via nanoparticle dissolution from food containers or by secondary ingestion of inhaled particles. Additionally, increased utilisation of nanoparticles may lead to increased environmental contamination and unintentional ingestion via water, food animals, or fish. The gastrointestinal tract is a site of complex, symbiotic interactions between host cells and the resident microbiome. Accordingly, evaluation of nanoparticles must take into consideration not only absorption and extraintestinal organ accumulation but also the potential for altered gut microbes and the effects of this perturbation on the host. The existing literature was evaluated for evidence of toxicity based on these considerations. Focus was placed on three categories of nanomaterials: nanometals and metal oxides, carbon-based nanoparticles, and polymer/dendrimers with emphasis on those particles of greatest relevance to gastrointestinal exposures.

The article is behind a paywall.

I last mentioned Frank Witzmann here in a May 8, 2013 posting titled, US multicenter (Nano GO Consortium) study of engineered nanomaterial toxicology.

Self-cleaning products dangerous?

Leave a reply

For anyone else out there who hates housecleaning, this is heartbreaking research. Personally, I’m not sure I can ever forgive Professor Jonathan Raff at Indian University for this (from a June 12, 2103 Indiana University news release; also on EurekAlert),

Research by Indiana University [IU] environmental scientists shows that air-pollution-removal technology used in “self-cleaning” paints and building surfaces may actually cause more problems than they solve.

The study finds that titanium dioxide coatings, seen as promising for their role in breaking down airborne pollutants on contact, are likely in real-world conditions to convert abundant ammonia to nitrogen oxide, the key precursor of harmful ozone pollution.

“As air quality standards become more stringent, people are going to be thinking about other technologies that can reduce pollution,” said Jonathan D. Raff, assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington and an author of the study. “Our research suggests that this may not be one of them.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for this published study,

Photooxidation of Ammonia on TiO2 as a Source of NO and NO2 under Atmospheric Conditions by Mulu A. Kebede, Mychel E. Varner ‡, Nicole K. Scharko, R. Benny Gerber, and Jonathan D. Raff. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135 (23), pp 8606–8615 DOI: 10.1021/ja401846x Publication Date (Web): May 30, 2013

Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

This research is behind a paywall.

The news release goes on to explain what makes this latest discovery about titanium dioxide particularly relevant,

The findings are timely because the Environmental Protection Agency is developing stricter regulations for ground-level ozone, a primary component in photochemical smog. The pollution is linked to serious health problems, including breathing difficulties and heart and lung disease.

Ozone is produced by reactions involving nitrogen oxides (NOx), which come primarily from motor vehicle emissions, and volatile organic compounds resulting from industrial processes. Equipping cars with catalytic converters has been effective at reducing ozone in urban areas. But different technologies may be needed to meet tighter air-quality standards of the future.

The need has sparked interest in titanium dioxide, a common mineral that is used as a whitening agent in paints and surface coatings. The compound acts as a photocatalyst, breaking down nitrogen oxides, ammonia and other pollutants in the presence of sunlight. “Self-cleaning” surfaces coated with titanium dioxide can break down chemical grime that will otherwise adhere to urban buildings. News stories have celebrated “smog-eating” tiles and concrete surfaces coated with the compound.

But Raff and his colleagues show that, in normal environmental conditions, titanium dioxide also catalyzes the incomplete breakdown of ammonia into nitrogen oxides. Ammonia is an abundant constituent in motor vehicle emissions, and its conversion to nitrogen oxides could result in increases in harmful ozone concentrations.

“We show that uptake of atmospheric NH3 (ammonia) onto surfaces containing TiO2 (titanium dioxide) is not a permanent removal process, as previously thought, but rather a photochemical route for generating reactive oxides of nitrogen that play a role in air pollution and are associated with significant health effects,” the authors write.

Raff, who is also an adjunct professor of chemistry in the IU College of Arts and Sciences, said other studies missed the effect on ammonia because they investigated reactions that occur with high levels of emissions under industrial conditions, not the low levels and actual humidity levels typically present in urban environments.

The findings also call into question other suggestions for using titanium dioxide for environmental remediation — for example, to remove odor-causing organic compounds from emissions produced by confined livestock feeding operations. Titanium dioxide has also been suggested as a geo-engineering substance that could be injected into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the Earth and combat global warming.

Further studies in Raff’s lab are aimed at producing better understanding of the molecular processes involved when titanium dioxide catalyzes the breakdown of ammonia. The results could suggest approaches for developing more effective pollution-control equipment as well as improvements in industrial processes involving ammonia.

It’ll be interesting to see how that resolves itself. I imagine some of the civil society groups are going to get very excited about this research.

US multicenter (Nano GO Consortium) study of engineered nanomaterial toxicology

1 Reply

Nano Go Consortium is the name they gave a multicenter toxicology study of engineered nanomaterials which has pioneered a new approach  in the US to toxicology research. From the May 6, 2013 news item on Azonano,

For the first time, researchers from institutions around the country have conducted an identical series of toxicology tests evaluating lung-related health impacts associated with widely used engineered nanomaterials (ENMs).

The study [on rodents] provides comparable health risk data from multiple labs, which should help regulators develop policies to protect workers and consumers who come into contact with ENMs.

The May 6, 2013 North Carolina State University news release, which originated the news item, describes the results from one of two studies that were recently published by the Nano GO Consortium in Environmental Health Perspectives,

The researchers found that carbon nanotubes, which are used in everything from bicycle frames to high performance electronics, produced inflammation and inflammatory lesions in the lower portions of the lung. However, the researchers found that the nanotubes could be made less hazardous if treated to remove excess metal catalysts used in the manufacturing process or modified by adding carboxyl groups to the outer shell of the tubes to make them more easily dispersed in biological fluids.

The researchers also found that titanium dioxide nanoparticles also caused inflammation in the lower regions of the lung. Belt-shaped titanium nanoparticles caused more cellular damage in the lungs, and more pronounced lesions, than spherical nanoparticles.

Here’s a link to and a citation for this study on rodents,

Interlaboratory Evaluation of Rodent Pulmonary Responses to Engineered Nanomaterials: The NIEHS NanoGo Consortium by James C. Bonner, Rona M. Silva, Alexia J. Taylor, Jared M. Brown, Susana C. Hilderbrand, Vincent Castranova, Dale Porter, Alison Elder, Günter Oberdörster, Jack R. Harkema, Lori A. Bramble, Terrance J. Kavanagh, Dianne Botta, Andre Nel, and Kent E. Pinkerton. Environ Health Perspect (): .doi:10.1289/ehp.1205693  Published: May 06, 2013

And the information for the other study which this consortium has published,

Interlaboratory Evaluation of in Vitro Cytotoxicity and Inflammatory Responses to Engineered Nanomaterials: The NIEHS NanoGo Consortium by Tian Xia, Raymond F. Hamilton Jr, James C. Bonner, Edward D. Crandall, Alison Elder, Farnoosh Fazlollahi, Teri A. Girtsman, Kwang Kim, Somenath Mitra, Susana A. Ntim, Galya Orr, Mani Tagmount8, Alexia J. Taylor, Donatello Telesca, Ana Tolic, Christopher D. Vulpe, Andrea J. Walker, Xiang Wang, Frank A. Witzmann, Nianqiang Wu, Yumei Xie, Jeffery I. Zink, Andre Nel, and Andrij Holian. Environ Health Perspect (): .doi:10.1289/ehp.1306561 Published: May 06, 2013

Environmental Health Perspectives is an open access journal and the two studies are being offered as ‘early’ publication efforts and will be updated with the full studies at a later date.

Most interesting for me is the editorial offered by four of the researchers involved in the Nano GO Consortium, from the editorial,

Determining the health effects of ENMs presents some unique challenges. The thousands of ENMs in use today are made from an enormous range of substances, vary considerably in size, and take a diversity of shapes, including spheres, cubes, cones, tubes, and other forms. They are also produced in different laboratories across the world using a variety of methods. In the scientific literature, findings on the properties and toxicity of these materials are mixed and often difficult to compare across studies. To improve the reliability and reproducibility of data in this area, there is a need for uniform research protocols and methods, handling guidelines, procurement systems, and models.

…

Although there is still much to learn about the toxicity of ENMs, we are fortunate to start with a clean slate: There are as yet no documented incidences of human disease due to ENM exposure (Xia et al. 2009). Because ENMs are manmade rather than natural substances, we have an opportunity to design, manufacture, and use these materials in ways that allow us to reap the maximum benefits—and minimal risk—to humans.

With $13 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awarded 13 2-year grants to advance research on the health impacts of ENMs (NIEHS 2013). [emphasis mine] Ten grants were awarded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grand Opportunities program and three were funded through the NIH Challenge Grants program. One goal of this investment was to develop reliable, reproducible methods to assess exposure and biological response to nanomaterials.

…

Within the framework of the consortium, grantees designed and conducted a series of “round-robin” experiments in which similar or identical methods were used to perform in vitro and in vivo tests on the toxicity of selected nanomaterials concurrently at 13 different laboratories.

…

Conducting experiments in a round-robin format within a consortium structure is an unfamiliar approach for most researchers. Although some researchers acknowledged that working collaboratively with such a large and diverse group at times stretched the limits of their comfort zones, the consortium ultimately proved to be “greater than the sum of its parts,” resulting in reliable, standardized protocols that would have been difficult for researchers to achieve by working independently. Indeed, many participants reflected that participating in the consortium not only benefitted their shared goals but also enhanced their individual research efforts. The round-robin approach and the overall consortium structure may be valuable models for other emerging areas of science.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the Consortium’s editorial, which is available in full,

Nano GO Consortium—A Team Science Approach to Assess Engineered Nanomaterials: Reliable Assays and Methods by Thaddeus T. Schug, Srikanth S. Nadadur, and Anne F. Johnson. Environ Health Perspect 121(2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1306866 [online 06 May 2013]

I like the idea of researchers working together across institutional and geographical boundaries as that can be a very powerful approach. I hope that won’t devolve into a form of institutionalized oppression where individual researchers are forced out or ignored. In general, it’s the outlier research that often proves to be truly groundbreaking, which often generates extraordinary and informal (and sometimes formal) resistance. For an example of groundbreaking work that was rejected by other researchers who banded together informally, there’s Dan Shechtman, 2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, famously faced hostility from his colleagues for years over his discovery of quasicrystals.

Inaugural workshop using *nanomaterials for environmental remediation being held in Louisiana

1 Reply

Participants at the Nano-4-Rem (nanomaterials for environmental remediation) aNsseRS workshop will be visiting the Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond in early June 2013. From the Nov.  6, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

An inaugural workshop on the safe use of nanomaterials in environmental remediation will be held at Southeastern Louisiana University June 5-7, 2013.

With increased use of nanotechnology and nanomaterials in the cleanup of hazardous sites, there is now a growing body of evidence that exposure to these materials may have adverse health effects, said conference organizer Ephraim Massawe, assistant professor of occupational safety, health and environment.

“The applications and results of nano-enabled strategies and methods for environmental remediation are increasingly promising,” Massawe said. “The challenge is ensuring that such applications are both safe and sustainable.”

There is more information on Southeastern Louisiana University’s Nano-4-Rem aNsseRS webpage,

Background: Groundwater or soil contamination is present at most Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action sites. Traditional technologies, such as pump-and-treat (P&T) and permeable reactive barriers (PRBs), have been used for decades to remediate such sites. In recent years, remediation strategies involving engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) such as zero-valent iron and titanium dioxide have been demonstrated as viable time-saving and cost-effective alternatives to traditional remediation. In addition, advances in nanotechnology-enabled assessment and monitoring methods such as nano-sensors may support more extensive, reliable, and cost effective assessment and management of remediation activities.

At the same time that applications of nano-enabled strategies and methods for environmental remediation are increasingly promising, there is a growing body of evidence linking exposure to certain nanomaterials with adverse health effects in animals at the laboratory scale. The challenge is to ensure that such applications are both safe and sustainable. …

Workshop Objectives: This is the first national workshop that provides an opportunity for representatives from the environmental remediation community, industry, academia, and government to:

  • Share their perspectives, pose questions, and develop ideas for design of good guidelines, selection criteria, and work practices to support safe and sustainable nano-enabled environmental remediation;
  • Become acquainted with other U.S. nanotechnology stakeholders, including vendors, transporters, and contractors of the remediation sites and communities; and
  • Share case studies of nano-enhanced clean up technologies, including selection criteria for alternative remediation strategies and methods, job planning, job tasks, and nanomaterial handling practices.

Furthermore, in the context of nanoinformatics (Nanoinformatics 2020 Roadmap), the workshop will present:

  • Occupational and environmental regulatory issues as they relate to remediation, synthesis and characterization, and application of nanoinformatics for safe and sustainable use of nanomaterials during remediation;
  • Fate and transport of nanomaterials during and after remediation;
  • Risks, including contributions from both toxicological properties of nanomaterials (hazard) and potentials for occupational and environmental exposure, where hazard x exposure = risk;
  • Results of the recent nanoinformatics survey of state agencies and programs described on the workshop website; and
  • Opportunities for developing and sustaining continuing advances and collaborations.

Call for Presenters and Deadlines: Participants are invited from the industry; site contractors, nanomaterial vendors; laboratories that synthesize and characterize ENPs for environmental remediation; regulatory authorities (local, state, and federal government) and academia (faculty and students). Presenters should submit titles and abstracts for podium or poster presentations by December 14, 2012. The workshop or program schedule will be finalized by February 20, 2013. Event date: June 5-7, 2013. Students are encouraged to submit proposals for podium or poster presentations. “Best student” poster and presentation awards will be given. Information about this workshop can also be found at http://cluin.org [a US Environmental Protection Agency ‘office’].

The Nov. 7, 2012 news release from Southeastern Louisiana University which originated the news item (Nanowerk seems to have posted the item before the release was posted on the university website) provides more detail,

The event, “Nano-4-Rem-Anssers 2013: Applications of Nanotechnology for Safe and Sustainable Environmental Remediations,” is one of the first of its kind in the Southeast which has been designed to provide an opportunity for involved parties to share perspectives, pose questions and develop ideas for generating solid guidelines for best work practices that support safe and sustainable nano-enabled environmental remediation.

Southeastern is sponsoring the event with other agencies and institutions, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institute of Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and in conjunction with the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO).

The program will include case studies of nano-enhanced clean up technologies, including selection criteria for alternative remediation strategies and methods, job planning and tasks, and safe material handling practices. Other issues to be discussed are updates of toxicity studies, fate and transport of nanoparticules [the French word for nanoparticles is nanoparticules ..  this seems an unusual choice for a news release from a US university but Louisiana was French at one time, so perhaps there’s a desire to retain a linguistic link?]  in soils and groundwater, and nanoinformatics.

I have written about nanoremediation before. Here are a few of the latest,

Nanoremediation techniques from Iran and from South Carolina

Canadian soil remediation expert in Australia

Phyto and nano soil remediation (part 2: nano)

* ‘nanotechnolmaterials corrected to ‘nanomaterials’ on Sept. 23, 2013.

Toxicology convo heats up: OECD releases report on inhalation toxicity testing and Nature Nanotechnology publishes severe critique of silver toxicity overanalysis

2 Replies

This has to be one of the rawest reports I’ve seen and that’s not a criticism. The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) has released no. 35 in its Series on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials titled, INHALATION TOXICITY TESTING: EXPERT MEETING ON POTENTIAL REVISIONS TO OECD TEST GUIDELINES AND GUIDANCE DOCUMENT.

This report is the outcome of a meeting which took place in fall 2011 according to the July 4, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The expert meeting on Inhalation Toxicity Testing for Nanomaterials was held on 19-20 October 2011 in The Hague, hosted by the Netherlands, with the aim of discussing the results of the OECD Sponsorship Programme (under the responsibility of SG3) on this specific topic and addressing issues relevant to inhalation toxicity. Fifty experts from the WPMN as well as the OECD Working Group of the National Coordinators for the Test Guidelines programme (WNT) participated in the meeting.

This is a partial list of recommendations from the report,

Recommendations raised by the speakers for the discussion

7. Various recommendations were raised by the speakers that served as points for discussion. These recommendations do not necessarily reflect a general agreement. …

• “Provide explicit guidance for the generation of aerosols (sample preparation) based on the exposure scenario”. Hans Muijser

• “Generation of a test atmosphere should have workplace characteristics, but should be adapted to adjust for rodent respirability”. Günter Oberdörster

• “A choice for a dry aerosol or a liquid aerosol should depend on the given test substance and planned test approach (hazard- or risk driven)”. Otto Creutzenberg

• “Aerosol characterization should include size distribution, mass, number and morphology of the material”. Günter Oberdörster

• “Mass concentration is not sufficient for comparison of nanomaterials of the same chemical composition”. Flemming Cassee

• “Dry powders will appear as agglomerate upon aerosolization, which needs to be addressed in the sample preparation guidelines”. Flemming Cassee

• “Dissolution behaviour of the test substance should be assessed in physiological fluids mimicking various lung-specific pH ambiences (neutral, acid)”. Otto Creutzenberg

• “Data analysis should include interpretation of aerosol characteristics, NOAEL, risk assessment implications, mode of action and a strategy for dosimetric extrapolation to humans. The inclusion of biokinetic data is important”. Günter Oberdörster

• “Include biokinetics in the guidance, since different distribution patterns in the whole organism are likely dependent on physicochemical characteristics of nanoparticle aerosols and the dose at the target site will therefore be different. This will allow the assessment of accumulation of nanomaterials in the body at low exposure levels and long-term exposure. A way to perform it is by radiolabelled materials, chemical elemental analysis to determine organ concentrations and transmission electron microscopy”. Wolfgang Kreyling. Others who have suggested inclusion of biokinetics or recognized the importance were Otto Creutzenberg, Frieke Kuper, Günter Oberdörster and David Warheit. (p. 13)

You actually see who made the recommendations! Speakers discussed carbon nanotubes, titanium dioxide, cerium oxide, zinc oxide and more, all of which you can read about in summary form in this 38 pp. report.

Meanwhile, Nature Nanotechnology has published an incendiary commentary about nanosilver and the latest request by the European Commission for another study.  Michael Berger has devoted a July 4, 2012 Nanowerk Spotlight article to the commentary,

A commentary by Steffen Foss Hansen and Anders Baun in this week’s Nature Nanotechnology (“When enough is enough”  [behind a paywall]) pointedly asks “when will governments and regulatory agencies stop asking for more reports and reviews, and start taking regulatory action?”

Hansen and Baun, both from the Technical University of Denmark’s Department of Environmental Engineering, take issue with yet another scientific opinion on nanosilver that has been requested by the European Commission in late 2011: “SCENIHR – Request for a scientific opinion on Nanosilver: safety, health and environmental effects and role in antimicrobial resistance” (pdf). Specifically, the EC wants SCENIHR to answer four questions under the general heading of ‘Nanosilver: safety, health and environmental effects, and role in antimicrobial resistance’.

“Most of these questions – and possibly all of them – have already been addressed by no less than 18 review articles in scientific journals, the oldest dating back to 2008, plus at least seven more reviews and reports commissioned and/or funded by governments and other organizations” Hansen tells Nanowerk. “Many of these reviews and reports go through the same literature, cover the same ground and identify many of the same data gaps and research needs.”

Here’s a prediction from Hansen and Baun as to what will be in the next report due in 2013  (from the Nature Nanotechnology commentary When enough is enough in 7, 409–411 (2012) published online  July 1, 2012 [Note: I have removed links and footnotes]),

… we predict that the SCENIHR’s upcoming review will consist of five main sections summarizing: the properties and uses of nanosilver; human and environmental toxicity; microbial resistance; risk assessment; and research needs. We also predict that the SCENIHR’s report will say something along the following lines: “Nanosilver is reportedly one of the most widely used nanomaterials in consumer products today but the scale of production and use is unknown. The antibacterial properties of nanosilver are exploited in a very diverse set of products and applications including dietary supplements, personal care products, powdered colours, textile, paper, kitchenware and food storage.” And like many previous reviews and reports, the new report is likely to cite the Consumer Product Inventory maintained by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.

…

We acknowledge that answering the question of how to regulate the use of nanosilver is not easy given the different views of the different stakeholders in this debate and the complex regulatory landscape associated with the many applications of nanosilver. …

…

Arguably, we all want that the pros and cons of regulatory policy options be based on the best available science while taking broader socio-economical and ethical aspects into consideration before deciding on the appropriate regulatory measures concerning human and environmental exposure to nanosilver. Although it is common for independent scientific experts to be commissioned to gather, analyse and review the available scientific information, and to provide recommendations on how to address a given risk, we do not see the need for further reviews. It is time for the European Commission to decide on the regulatory measures that are appropriate for nanosilver. These measures should then be implemented wholeheartedly and their effectiveness monitored.

I predict this commentary will provoke some interesting responses and I will try to add the ones I can find to this posting as they become available.

ETA July 6, 2012: Dexter Johnson weighed in with his July 5, 2012 posting (Note: I have removed a link),

What may make the matter even worse is that we may already have a pretty substantial framework—in the US, at least—on which to base nanosilver regulations, which dates back to the 1950s. It concerned what was called at the time collodial silver, which is essentially what today is called nanosilver.

But getting back to current stagnant state of affairs, it’s hard to know exactly what’s causing the paralysis. It could be concern over implementing regulations in a depressed economy, or just a fear of taking a position. But in both these instances, the lack of action is making the situation worse. …