Brodnicke, Ole Bjørn

Dergaj, Svetoslavas

Jachowicz, Dominika

Knudsen, Emil

The use of engineered nanoparticles, especially silver nanoparticles, has in recent years boomed in different areas of medicine and industry, for example due to their antibacterial and antifungal properties. Lately environmental scientists have raised their concern on the adverse effects that ongoing investigations showed. Most of the nanoparticles end up in natural water systems by the route of sewage water where they tend to bind to the sediment. There, they can disrupt the benthic species which, due to their position in the food chain and ability to cycle nutrients can have an effect on the ecosystem as a whole. In this project avoidance testing on the benthic worm Lumbriculus variegatus is being investigated as a means of screening for nanoparticles. This experiment consisted of placing ten worms of the standard test species, L. variegatus, in a beaker half filled with silver nanoparticle-contaminated sediment. Ag+ is used as a comparison contaminant and 5 concentrations were chosen for each test. After 24 and 96 hours the worms where collected and their choice of clean versus contaminated side was noted. In the 24 hour experiment the worms avoided the contaminated sediment increasingly in correlation to the concentrations. After 96 hours the avoidance behavior of the worms was not as pronounced. AAS analysis of the sediment showed that this was not due to diffusion of nanoparticles to the clean side of the beaker; this supports the applicability of the setup and spiking method. In conclusion, behavioral avoidance tests can be considered a feasible tool for assessing risk of silver nanoparticles over short periods of time such as 24 hours.The use of engineered nanoparticles, especially silver nanoparticles, has in recent years boomed in different areas of medicine and industry, for example due to their antibacterial and antifungal properties. Lately environmental scientists have raised their concern on the adverse effects that ongoing investigations showed. Most of the nanoparticles end up in natural water systems by the route of sewage water where they tend to bind to the sediment. There, they can disrupt the benthic species which, due to their position in the food chain and ability to cycle nutrients can have an effect on the ecosystem as a whole. In this project avoidance testing on the benthic worm Lumbriculus variegatus is being investigated as a means of screening for nanoparticles. This experiment consisted of placing ten worms of the standard test species, L. variegatus, in a beaker half filled with silver nanoparticle-contaminated sediment. Ag+ is used as a comparison contaminant and 5 concentrations were chosen for each test. After 24 and 96 hours the worms where collected and their choice of clean versus contaminated side was noted. In the 24 hour experiment the worms avoided the contaminated sediment increasingly in correlation to the concentrations. After 96 hours the avoidance behavior of the worms was not as pronounced. AAS analysis of the sediment showed that this was not due to diffusion of nanoparticles to the clean side of the beaker; this supports the applicability of the setup and spiking method. In conclusion, behavioral avoidance tests can be considered a feasible tool for assessing risk of silver nanoparticles over short periods of time such as 24 hours

Behavioral Responses to Silver Nanoparticles – A potential tool for risk management

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Roskilde Universitet