Common household products containing nanoparticles — grains of engineered material so miniscule they’re invisible to the attention — might be contributing to a brand new type of indoor air pollution, in line with a Rutgers study.
In a study published within the journal Science of the Total Environment, a team of Rutgers researchers found people walking through an area, where a consumer product containing nanoparticles was recently sprayed, stirred residual specks off carpet fibers and floor surfaces, projecting them some three to 5 feet within the air. A baby playing on the ground nearby can be more greatly affected than the adult, experiments showed.
“If an adult is walking in a room, and steps on a few of these deposited particles, we found that the particles shall be re-suspended within the air and rise as high as that person’s respiration zone,” said Gediminas Mainelis, a professor within the Department of Environmental Science at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, who led the study. “A baby playing on the ground inhales much more since the concentrations of particles are greater closer to the bottom.”
While it’s still too early to gauge the long-term effects of those particles on people’s health, Mainelis said the outcomes are vital to contemplate. “At this point, it’s more about increasing awareness so that folks know just what they’re using,” he said.
A nanoparticle is a fleck of fabric ranging in size roughly between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. The human eye only can see particles larger than ~50,000 nanometers. A sheet of office paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
Nanoparticles are in a big selection of popular household products equivalent to cleaners, disinfectants, sunscreen, hairsprays, and cosmetic mists and powders.
Nanomaterials, often made out of silver, copper or zinc, have develop into widely utilized in industry due to the weird properties they exhibit when manipulated on a microscopic level.
Scientists have found particles altered on the “nanoscale” can differ in vital ways from the properties exhibited by the fabric in bulk. Some nanoparticles are stronger or have different magnetic properties compared with other forms or sizes of the identical material. They’ll conduct heat or electricity more efficiently. They have been found to develop into more chemically reactive, reflect light higher or change color.
Since nanoparticles differ substantially from the properties of the identical material in aggregated form, researchers worry that nanoparticles may differ by way of being more strongly toxic, with consequences for human health.
“There could be very limited knowledge of the potential for exposure to nanoparticles from consumer products and resulting health effects,” said Mainelis, who has been studying these substances since 2012.
Scientists have long been conversant in the undeniable fact that pollutant particles deposited on flooring surfaces might be resuspended by walking, Mainelis said. What wasn’t known was whether particles from nanotechnology-enabled consumer sprays might be resuspended. Also, the aspects affecting resuspension weren’t well understood.
To learn more, Mainelis and his team constructed an enclosed, air-controlled chamber in a bit of his laboratory with each carpeting and vinyl flooring. They used a small robot to simulate the actions of a toddler. And, wearing Tyvek suits and respirators, they walked the surface after seven products containing nanoparticles of silver, zinc, and copper were sprayed into the air, and measured the outcomes.
They confirmed nanoparticles were released by the tested sprays and reached the human respiration zone. They found children might be exposed to higher particle mass concentrations than adults during spraying and resuspension of deposited particles. The study also showed resuspension of particles from carpets produced a better concentration of particles than from the vinyl flooring. The researchers also concluded that the concentration of particles resuspended by their motion trusted the product.
The research can guide individuals on approaches to guard health, Mainelis said.
“We will use this information to reduce our exposures, on this case to numerous nanomaterials,” Mainelis said. “Overall, this work could help us understand the resulting exposures and support future studies on human exposure reduction.” Other researchers on the study included Jie McAtee, a postdoctoral associate, and Ruikang He, a doctoral student who graduated in 2023 and is now a postdoctoral associate in China, each within the Department of Environmental Science on the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Science.
