Environmental safety of nanotechnologies: The eco-design of manufactured nanomaterials for environmental remediation

Nanosafety is paramount considering the risks associated with manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) whose implications could outweigh their advantages for environmental applications. Although nanotechnology-based solutions to implement pollution control, remediation and prevention are incremental with clear benefits for public health and Earth' natural ecosystems, nanoremediation is having a setback due to the risks associated with the safety of MNMs for humans and the environment. MNMs are diverse, work differently and bionano-interactions occurring upon environmental exposure will guide their fate and hazardous outcomes. Here we propose a new ecologically-based design strategy (eco-design) having its roots in green nanoscience and LCA that will ground on an Ecological Risk Assessment approach, which introduces the evaluation of MNMs' ecotoxicity along with their performances and efficacies at the design stage. As such, the proposed eco-design strategy will allow recognition and design-out since the very beginning of material synthesis, those hazardous peculiar features that can be hazardous to living beings and the natural environment. A more ecologically sound eco-design strategy in which nanosafety is conceptually included in MNMs design will sustain safer nanotechnologies including those for the environment as remediation by leveraging any risks for humans and natural ecosystems. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS: Our review manuscript deals with the central role of nanosafety in environmental nanotechnologies with a focus on nanoremediation. By starting from the building blocks of green nanoscience and LCA, here an ecologically-based design framework (eco-design), which relies on testing ecological risk assessment of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) along with their efficacies and performances prior to being marketed, is proposed. As such, the proposed eco-design will satisfy and support the development of environmentally safe and sustainable nanotechnologies by limiting/reducing any potential risks for humans and the environment in compliance with the European and International strategies on cutting pollution and supporting environmental restoration.