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NaKnowBase: a nanomaterials relational database populated with extant data from the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)
Citation:
Beach, B., L. Degn, L. Thornton, H. Mortensen, AND W. Boyes. NaKnowBase: a nanomaterials relational database populated with extant data from the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD). SOT Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, March 11 - 15, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
A database of ORD research on the environmental and biological actions of engineered nanomaterials will help synthesize large segments of information regarding the potential environmental concerns for emerging nanotechnologies and enable development of sounder and more efficient management approaches
Description:
The continued emergence and growth of nanotechnology, including the application of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) in industry and commerce, raises the possibility of environmental releases of ENM, and the need to predict potential environmental consequences. A substantial amount of research has been published on this topic, but the information is difficult to assimilate and synthesize. In 2016, a relational data base (“NaKnowBase”) was developed featuring parameters relevant to the physical and chemical features of ENM and their potential actions in environmental and biological systems. This year, the database was populated with relevant data from peer-reviewed articles published by ORD authors. To do so, an initial search of internal EPA publication records yielded approximately 400 articles responsive to terms such as “nanoparticles”, “nanomaterials” and major ENM constituents (Ag, TiO2 etc). From those articles, literature reviews, articles concerning nanomaterial synthesis or green chemistry, and articles unrelated to nanomaterials and their environmental effects, were eliminated. 68 manuscripts dealing with the release of nanomaterials into the environment, environmental fate transport or transformation, exposure or effects on ecological or biological systems were identified as high priority. Authors of the articles who were current EPA employees were contacted and requested to provide the original data in a formated data entry template. Where data from original authors was unavailable, data were extracted from electronic versions of the papers by trained curators. To date, data have been collected from about 50 of the 68 high priority manuscripts. The database is currently available within the agency as a downloadable SQL file with corresponding schema. Future efforts will include continued data curation, construction of a user interface to facilitate queries of the data, and eventually, public access to the dataset via query functions. This abstract does not reflect EPA Policy