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Transfer of gold nanoparticles from the water column to the estuarine food web

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 441–444 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Within the next five years the manufacture of large quantities of nanomaterials may lead to unintended contamination of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems1. The unique physical, chemical and electronic properties of nanomaterials allow new modes of interaction with environmental systems that can have unexpected impacts2,3. Here, we show that gold nanorods can readily pass from the water column to the marine food web in three laboratory-constructed estuarine mesocosms containing sea water, sediment, sea grass, microbes, biofilms, snails, clams, shrimp and fish. A single dose of gold nanorods (65 nm length × 15 nm diameter) was added to each mesocosm and their distribution in the aqueous and sediment phases monitored over 12 days. Nanorods partitioned between biofilms, sediments, plants, animals and sea water with a recovery of 84.4%. Clams and biofilms accumulated the most nanoparticles on a per mass basis, suggesting that gold nanorods can readily pass from the water column to the marine food web.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup.
Figure 2: Nanoparticle concentration versus time.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of South Carolina Nanocenter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 29208, South Carolina, USA

    John L. Ferry, Preston Craig, Cole Hexel, Patrick Sisco, Rebecca Frey, Catherine J. Murphy & Timothy J. Shaw

  2. Nanocenter at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, 29208, South Carolina, USA

    John L. Ferry, Alan W. Decho, Shosaku Kashiwada, Catherine J. Murphy & Timothy J. Shaw

  3. National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research, Charleston, 29412, South Carolina, USA

    Paul L. Pennington, Michael H. Fulton & I. Geoff Scott

  4. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 29208, South Carolina, USA

    Alan W. Decho & Shosaku Kashiwada

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  1. John L. Ferry
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Contributions

J.L.F., T.J.S., P.L.P. and M.H.F. conceived and designed the experiment. P.S. and C.J.M. synthesized the nanoparticles. P.C., R.F. and P.L.P. dosed and sampled from the mesocosms. I.G.S., M.H.F. and P.L.P. maintained the mesocosms. C.H., P.C. and T.J.S. digested the samples and performed the ICP-MS analyses. A.W.D. provided biofilm sampling apparatus and procedures. S.K. performed Cyprinodon dissections. J.L.F., C.J.M. and T.J.S. wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to materials and analysis tools, discussed the results and contributed to the manuscript.

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Correspondence to John L. Ferry.

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Ferry, J., Craig, P., Hexel, C. et al. Transfer of gold nanoparticles from the water column to the estuarine food web. Nature Nanotech 4, 441–444 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.157

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