Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Yang, Yaning
• Xu, Shengmin
• Xu, Guangmin
• Liu, Rui
• Xu, An
• Chen, Shaopeng
• Wu, Lijun

Titel

Effects of ionic strength on physicochemical properties and toxicity of silver nanoparticles

Ist Teil von

• The Science of the total environment, 2019-01, Vol.647, p.1088-1096

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the environment, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) undergo a number of potential transformations, such as aggregation, dissolution, and redox reactions. However, the transformation in ionic strength condition, as well as their related toxicity was not quite clear, especially in the in vivo system. In the present study, we comprehensively evaluated three different characteristics (ddH2O, EPA water and K+ medium (KM)) mediated changes in the physical morphology of AgNPs and the alteration of the toxicity to Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Our results showed besides the changes of AgNPs behavior such as the transformation of morphological, with the transmission electron microscopy we found for the first time that smaller nanoparticles (<5 nm) appeared around the pristine AgNPs after incubation in EPA or KM for 5 days. Together with these changes, the toxicity of AgNPs to C. elegans changed significantly, showing that a higher ionic strength medium resulted in greater toxicity to C. elegans, as measured by germ cell apoptosis, brood size and lifespan. More importantly, our results indicated that the higher toxicity of AgNPs to C. elegans reproduction was probably related to the appearance of the smaller-size AgNPs in higher ionic strength media. These findings highlight that toxicity assessments for the release of nanomaterial to the environment need to be improved to assess environmental safety more accurately. [Display omitted] •The ionic strength significantly affected the transformation of AgNPs.•The new, smaller AgNPs were observed in ionic strength exposure media.•A higher ionic strength medium resulted in greater toxicity of AgNPs to C. elegans.•The higher toxicity of AgNPs to C. elegans probably because of the formation of new, smaller AgNPs.