Methods for assessing basic particle properties and cytotoxicity of engineered nanoparticles

Methods for assessing basic particle properties and cytotoxicity of engineered nanoparticles

Kalantzi, O.I.
Biskos, G.

Applied Sciences

Chemical Engineering

2014-03-19

The increasing penetration of materials and products containing engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) to the market is posing many concerns regarding their environmental impacts. To assess these impacts, there is an urgent need of techniques for determining the health-related properties of ENPs and standards for assessing their toxicity. Although a wide number of systems for characterizing nanoparticles in different media (i.e., gases and liquids) is already commercially available, the development of protocols for determining the cytotoxicity of ENPs is still at an infant stage, drawing upon existing knowledge from general toxicology. In this regard, differences in the preparation of ENP-containing solutions for cytotoxicity testing, as well as in the steps involved in the tests can result in significant deviations and inconsistencies between studies. In an attempt to highlight the urgent need for assessing the environmental impacts of nanotechnology, this article provides a brief overview of the existing methods for determining health-related properties of ENPs and their cytotoxicity.

nanotechnology
engineered nanoparticles
cytotoxicity
human exposure

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:748de818-c728-438e-96d8-ac02351f3812

https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics2010079

MDPI

2305-6304

Toxics, 2 (1), 2014

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).