Ecotoxicity: All clear for silver nanoparticles?
Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 06:30
in Physics & Chemistry
It has long been known that, in the form of free ions, silver particles can be highly toxic to aquatic organisms. Yet to this day, there is a lack of detailed knowledge about the doses required to trigger a response and how the organisms deal with this kind of stress. In the past, silver mostly found its way into the environment in the vicinity of silver mines or via wastewater emanating from the photo industry. More recently, silver nanoparticles have become commonplace in many applications -- as ingredients in cosmetics, food packaging, disinfectants, and functional clothing. To learn more about the cellular processes that occur in the cells, scientists subjected algae to a range of silver concentrations.