Nanomaterials and the Environment
Jamie Lead, University of South Carolina
25 Jan 2013
Nanomaterials (NMs) can be defined as materials and which are between 1 and 100 nm and which have novel or unusual physical behavior. In addition to this unique behavior, nanoscience and nanotechnology are hugely important, with tens of thousands of publications each year and estimated markets in nano-enabled goods of thousands of millions of dollars per year. Given this scale, nanomaterials are very important emerging pollutants, quite separate from their novel properties. This talk will discuss the potential risk of manufactured nanomaterials in the environment and discuss specific aspects of synthesis, characterization and environmental fate and behavior. Attention will be focused on the production and metrology associated with understanding how nanomaterial properties might affect impacts and biological effects in the environment and material transformations brought about by environmental conditions.