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  • Review Article
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Low risk posed by engineered and incidental nanoparticles in drinking water

Nature Nanotechnology volume 13, pages 661–669 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Natural nanoparticles (NNPs) in rivers, lakes, oceans and ground water predate humans, but engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) are emerging as potential pollutants due to increasing regulatory and public perception concerns. This Review contrasts the sources, composition and potential occurrence of NNPs (for example, two-dimensional clays, multifunctional viruses and metal oxides) and ENPs in surface water, after centralized drinking water treatment, and in tap water. While analytical detection challenges exist, ENPs are currently orders of magnitude less common than NNPs in waters that flow into drinking water treatment plants. Because such plants are designed to remove small-sized NNPs, they are also very good at removing ENPs. Consequently, ENP concentrations in tap water are extremely low and pose low risk during ingestion. However, after leaving drinking water treatment plants, corrosion by-products released from distribution pipes or in-home premise plumbing can release incidental nanoparticles into tap water. The occurrence and toxicity of incidental nanoparticles, rather than ENPs, should therefore be the focus of future research.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of particle sizes and number concentrations reported in surface, ocean and ground waters.
Fig. 2: Time-resolved 49Ti data for Verde River (left), and tap water from a DWTP treating Verde River water (right).
Fig. 3: ENP predicted surface water concentrations, background bulk concentrations, detection limits and drinking water standards.
Fig. 4

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by the National Science Foundation through the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (EEC-1449500 and CBET-1336542). Partial funding was also provided from the USEPA through the STAR program (RD83558001). Jose Hernandez-Viezcas (University of Texas, El Paso) provided suggestions on optical sensing for ENPs, graphical assistance was provided by Michael Northrop (Arizona State University) and Laurel Passantino (Arizona State University) provided technical editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Paul Westerhoff & Ariel Atkinson

  2. Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    John Fortner

  3. Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, Department of Chemical Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Michael S. Wong

  4. Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Julie Zimmerman

  5. Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, Department of Chemistry, University of Texas – El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA

    Jorge Gardea-Torresdey

  6. Department of Chemistry and Geochemistry, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA

    James Ranville

  7. School of Molecular Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Pierre Herckes

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  1. Paul Westerhoff
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Correspondence to Paul Westerhoff.

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Westerhoff, P., Atkinson, A., Fortner, J. et al. Low risk posed by engineered and incidental nanoparticles in drinking water. Nature Nanotech 13, 661–669 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0217-9

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