From nanoobject release of (Bio)nanomaterials to exposure

AbstractAn increasing variety of different nanostructured materials including bionanomaterials are used. During synthesis, but also during use of nanostructured materials along their life-cycle, nanostructured materials and engineered nano-objects (ENO) – may be released into the environment. They will follow different exposure pathways and create an exposure concentration at the point of different biological systems, especially human beings. The inhalation pathway is of greatest importance with regard to health issues. The exposure concentration together with the breathing conditions integrated over time leads to the dose of the deposited material, which is of greatest interest for different effect studies. We discuss in this paper the kind of nanostructured material released from bionanomaterials into the environment. A large part of existing exposure studies in the literature is critically considered. A strategy is proposed to investigate in a more effective way the ENO-release from nanostructured materials as the first step of the exposure pathway. The release – exposure relationship as well as exposure – dose relationship for the case of inhalation is described leading to the possibility of tracing and ideally a complete balancing from ENO-release to dose. In the end the still needed activities for ENO-control methods in the environment are summarized.