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Global life cycle releases of engineered nanomaterials

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Abstract

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are now becoming a significant fraction of the material flows in the global economy. We are already reaping the benefits of improved energy efficiency, material use reduction, and better performance in many existing and new applications that have been enabled by these technological advances. As ENMs pervade the global economy, however, it becomes important to understand their environmental implications. As a first step, we combined ENM market information and material flow modeling to produce the first global assessment of the likely ENM emissions to the environment and landfills. The top ten most produced ENMs by mass were analyzed in a dozen major applications. Emissions during the manufacturing, use, and disposal stages were estimated, including intermediate steps through wastewater treatment plants and waste incineration plants. In 2010, silica, titania, alumina, and iron and zinc oxides dominate the ENM market in terms of mass flow through the global economy, used mostly in coatings/paints/pigments, electronics and optics, cosmetics, energy and environmental applications, and as catalysts. We estimate that 63–91 % of over 260,000–309,000 metric tons of global ENM production in 2010 ended up in landfills, with the balance released into soils (8–28 %), water bodies (0.4–7 %), and atmosphere (0.1–1.5 %). While there are considerable uncertainties in the estimates, the framework for estimating emissions can be easily improved as better data become available. The material flow estimates can be used to quantify emissions at the local level, as inputs for fate and transport models to estimate concentrations in different environmental compartments.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) under Cooperative Agreement Number DBI-0830117. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF or USEPA. This work has not been subjected to USEPA review, and no official endorsement should be inferred. The authors thank Michael Bostok for the d3.js script used to produce the Sankey diagrams.

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  1. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Arturo A. Keller, Suzanne McFerran, Anastasiya Lazareva & Sangwon Suh

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  1. Arturo A. Keller
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Correspondence to Arturo A. Keller.

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Keller, A.A., McFerran, S., Lazareva, A. et al. Global life cycle releases of engineered nanomaterials . J Nanopart Res 15, 1692 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-013-1692-4

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