Addressing the complexity of water chemistry in environmental fate modeling for engineered nanoparticles

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Nicole Sani-Kast
  • Martin Scheringer
  • Danielle Slomberg
  • Jérôme Labille
  • Antonia Praetorius
  • Patrick Ollivier
  • Konrad Hungerbühler

Engineered nanoparticle (ENP) fate models developed to date - aimed at predicting ENP concentration in the aqueous environment - have limited applicability because they employ constant environmental conditions along the modeled system or a highly specific environmental representation; both approaches do not show the effects of spatial and/or temporal variability. To address this conceptual gap, we developed a novel modeling strategy that: 1) incorporates spatial variability in environmental conditions in an existing ENP fate model; and 2) analyzes the effect of a wide range of randomly sampled environmental conditions (representing variations in water chemistry). This approach was employed to investigate the transport of nano-TiO2 in the Lower Rhône River (France) under numerous sets of environmental conditions. The predicted spatial concentration profiles of nano-TiO2 were then grouped according to their similarity by using cluster analysis. The analysis resulted in a small number of clusters representing groups of spatial concentration profiles. All clusters show nano-TiO2 accumulation in the sediment layer, supporting results from previous studies. Analysis of the characteristic features of each cluster demonstrated a strong association between the water conditions in regions close to the ENP emission source and the cluster membership of the corresponding spatial concentration profiles. In particular, water compositions favoring heteroaggregation between the ENPs and suspended particulate matter resulted in clusters of low variability. These conditions are, therefore, reliable predictors of the eventual fate of the modeled ENPs. The conclusions from this study are also valid for ENP fate in other large river systems. Our results, therefore, shift the focus of future modeling and experimental research of ENP environmental fate to the water characteristic in regions near the expected ENP emission sources. Under conditions favoring heteroaggregation in these regions, the fate of the ENPs can be readily predicted.

Original languageEnglish
JournalThe Science of The Total Environment
Volume535
Pages (from-to)150 - 159
Number of pages10
ISSN0048-9697
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.12.2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier B.V.

    Research areas

  • Engineered nanoparticles, Environmental fate modeling, Environmental variability, Nanoparticle fate assessment, River systems, TiO

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Martin Harbusch

Publications

  1. The productivity effect of temporary agency work
  2. Vehicle routing planning with joint distribution
  3. Advances in Laser Positioning of Machine Vision System and Their Impact on 3D Coordinates Measurement
  4. Resource selection by sympatric wild equids in the Mongolian Gobi
  5. Letters to the editor
  6. Natality ‒ Philosophical Rudiments concerning a Generative Phenomenology
  7. Risk aversion and labour market outcomes
  8. Non-linear effects of comparison income in quit decisions: status versus signal !
  9. Later Life Workplace Index: Validation of an English Version
  10. Elterliche Milieus
  11. Gemeinsam für das Klima
  12. Testing for Economies of Scope in European Railways
  13. Self-regulated learning and self assessment in online mathematics bridging courses
  14. Determiner Ellipsis in Electronic Writing - Discourse or Syntax?
  15. Scandinavia, Blacks in
  16. “We cannot let this happen again”
  17. Eco-Innovation in SMEs
  18. A leverage points perspective on social networks to understand sustainability transformations
  19. The Eschatical Perfection of the World in God
  20. Connecting Some Dots
  21. Re-Introducing Walther Schücking
  22. Plant traits affecting herbivory on tree recruits in highly diverse subtropical forests
  23. From visual projections to visionary locations
  24. Revitalization of the public sphere?
  25. The strength of vertical linkages
  26. Organizational Decline and Innovation in Manufacturing
  27. Textproduktion in der Sekundarstufe I
  28. Intrinsic Motivation in Bilingual Courses on Bionics and Molecular Biology in an Out-of-School Lab
  29. Concluding remarks: Moving forward in management education
  30. Towards a decision support system for radiotherapy business continuity in a pandemic crisis
  31. Gamification as twenty-first-century ideology
  32. The Implementation of the National Park Idea in Society
  33. Responses of an arable crop rotation system to elevated [CO2]
  34. Appraisal and coping predict health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: An international approach
  35. Loopdiver
  36. Governance of professional service firms: a configurational approach
  37. Militainment als "banaler" Militarismus
  38. German memory studies
  39. Cosmopolitanism in the Wake of Forced Migration.
  40. Ecosystem service supply and (in)equality archetypes
  41. Evolution, Planung und Zukunft