Nanomaterials Could Harm Fish, Environment - Study
US: September 22, 2008
CHICAGO - Buckyballs, tiny soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules that hold
promise for uses ranging from novel drug-delivery systems to fuel cells, may
threaten health by building up in fat, researchers said on Friday.
The nanoparticles, one billionth of a meter wide, could potentially
accumulate in fatty tissue of fish and other animals, they wrote in the
journal Environmental Science and Technology.
"Our results show they are going to be taken up by fish and other organisms,
possibly to toxic levels," said Chad Jafvert of Purdue University in
Indiana.
Nanotechnology, the design and manipulation of materials thousands of times
smaller than the width of a human hair, has been hailed as a way to make
strong, lightweight materials, better cosmetics and even tastier food. But
scientists are only starting to look at the impact such tiny objects might
have.
Jafvert's team at Purdue focused on buckyballs -- short for
buckminsterfullerenes or fullerenes. The hollow molecules, made up of 60
carbon atoms, take their name from American architect Buckminster Fuller,
who designed the geodesic dome.
The researchers mixed buckyballs with water and octanol, which resembles
animal fat, and found buckyballs accumulate in the fatty substance in
greater concentrations than the banned pesticide DDT, which also accumulates
in fats.
Concerns over the safety of buckyballs have been mounting. In 2005, lab
tests showed they were toxic to soil bacteria, and other studies suggest
they could cause significant brain damage in fish.
Some studies suggest that very tiny objects may have different effects in
the body than larger ones.
It is not clear whether buckyballs will break down in the environment or be
processed through an animal's metabolism, Jafvert said.
"We don't bioaccumulate sugars because we process sugars, but we do
bioaccumulate other compounds that we don't metabolize," he said.
Understanding how buckyballs and other fullerenes act is important because
manufacturers already are making millions of tons of them a year, Mary
Haasch, a scientist working with the Environmental Protection Agency in
Duluth, Minnesota, said in a telephone interview.
"The concern is not just that it might be bad for the fish. The people who
are making it, we need to know if they are breathing this stuff in," she
said.
This week, the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection
Agency granted US$38 million to establish two Centers for the Environmental
Implications of Nanotechnology at University of California at Los Angeles
and Duke University in North Carolina.
Jafvert was encouraged the EPA was funding more research. "They've got to
stay ahead of industry and that is often a difficult thing to do," he said.
(Editing by Maggie Fox)
Story by Julie Steenhuysen
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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