An Overview on Fate, Transport, and Behavior of Nanomaterials in the Environment

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the fate, transport, and behavior of nanomaterials (NMs) in the environment, explaining that most releases of manufactured NMs or engineered NMs originate from point or nonpoint sources. A few well-known properties are likely to be helpful in predicting the transport and separation among environmental media based on past research on contaminants (e.g., PCBs). The chapter provides examples of known chemical properties of nanoparticles in different environmental media. It then represents NM transformation in the environment with respect to NM release into air and its reaction and deposition, which leads to toxicity. NM transformation in other environment compartments may occur differently. Finally, the chapter discusses some cases of bioaccumulation in different types of organisms and overviews the current state of knowledge in this field.