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TRANSFORMATION AND FATE OF NANOMATERIALS DURING WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND INCINERATION
Impact/Purpose:
As nanotechnology-based products enter into widespread use, nanomaterials will end up in disposal waste streams that are ultimately discharged to the environment. Understanding how waste treatment may modify nanomaterials is critical to predicting the fate of nanomaterials in the environment. The overall objective of this research is to characterize the transformation and fate of engineered nanomaterials and by-products (e.g., trihalomethanes and dioxins) during biological wastewater treatment and incineration. Specific objectives are to (1) characterize nanomaterials before and after treatment to determine the physical and chemical transformations under biotic (wastewater treatment) or high-temperature, oxidative conditions (incineration), (2) determine the impact of nanomaterials on water chemistry and microbial community structure, particularly nitrifiers, during typical nitrifying activated sludge treatment, (3) quantify particle and hazardous pollutant emissions from the combustion of materials containing nanomaterials, (4) assess the fate of nanomaterials in wastewater effluent and incinerator exhaust, and (5) rank nanomaterials in terms of toxicity in each of the disposal streams.
Description:
This research will produce new data about the characteristics and fate of nanomaterials during biological wastewater treatment and incineration. Such knowledge is necessary for estimating exposure to nanomaterials and developing life cycle risk assessments of nanomaterials. Toxicity rankings produced by this study will allow researchers and risk managers to focus on the most hazardous types of nanomaterials. The disposal models of indefinite storage (e.g., nuclear waste) or environmental ubiquity (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls) must be replaced with a more sustainable approach to disposal, and results from this research will provide the first step in this direction.