Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NanoERA (Nanomaterials Ecological Risk Assessment: A study of the long-term effects and risks of nanoscale Iron Oxide used in plastic composites in the aquatic environment)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2015-07-03 do 2017-07-02
The use of n-CuPc can potentially lead to the release of n-CuPc which may pose environmental and occupational risks, especially to automechanics performing car maintenance and repairs. Even though the automobile industry has risk management measures in place (local exhaust of sanding equipment, face masks) to reduce occupational exposure, the knowledge on fate and hazard of sanding fragments is required for efficient risk management. Furthermore, very little is known about the exposure and hazard of released n-CuPc from automobile coatings in environmental and occupational settings.
The objective of NanoERA project is to address both the release of n-CuPc-containing fragments from commercial coatings in realistic occupational situations and the hazard of the released fragments to human health so as to provide information to the automobile industry regarding the potential risk to the workers employed in this sector.
The results showed similar distribution of size and quantity of fragments released from nano-enabled coatings and those released from control samples. The fragments showed higher agglomeration in Rosewell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI) than pristine n-CuPc. The toxicity of the fragment released from the coating and reference materials was similar and below the toxicity of pristine n-CuPc.
The main results demonstrated that when the n-CuPc was embedded in a polymer its toxicity was suppressed. The lack of difference in toxicity between fragments from nano-enabled and reference coatings can be explained by the fact that the coating matrix dominated the toxicity of released fragments, preventing the toxicity of the embedded n-CuPc. One hypothesis to explain the relatively low toxicity of the n-CuPc embedded in paint could be that the bioavailability of n-CuPc is reduced by matrix. This results in effective size of fragments in micrometre agglomerates which may contribute to the lower uptake of fragments, resulting in a lower dose in the cells and therefore a low toxicity of fragments to J774 cells.