Conference paper
Leaching potential of nanomaterials during different human contact scenarios and end-of-life
In order to understand how much, when and by which mechanisms nanomaterials are released during the life cycle of a given application, we have experimentally investigated the release of nanoparticles (NP) from a wide range of products. These include silver and titanium dioxide NP released from food storage containers, titanium dioxide released from coated ceramic tiles, iron (III) oxide NP from polyethylene granulates and silver NP released from toothbrushes.
In our investigation, we focused specifically on release during the consumer use phase and the waste handling phase as these two aspects of the life cycle seem to be especially important and not well understood. In order to get an estimation of the overall release potential of nanomaterials during the consumer use phase and the waste phase, we also mapped consumer products on the EU marked claiming to be nano-enabledand commercially available online (see www.nanodb.dk) as well as the waste flows of these consumer products.
We identified more than 1275 products to be available in the EU. Almost 200 products of these are claimed to contain nanosilver, but for more than 800 products the identity of the nanomaterial used was not reported. Based on information available online, the consumer products were categorized into waste material fractions, and we found that “Dirty plastic” (e.g. used bottles and containers) was clearly the dominating waste fraction for nano-enabled products.
CNTs and other nanomaterials were primarily represented in one or two waste fractions, whereas nanosilver was found to be present in six of the eight identified waste fractions.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2014 |
Proceedings: | Nanosafe 14 - 4th international conference on safe production and use of nanomaterials |
Journal subtitle: | International Conference on Safe Production and Use of Nanomaterials |
Types: | Conference paper |
ORCIDs: | Hansen, Steffen Foss , Mackevica, Aiga and Boldrin, Alessio |