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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Chem.
Sec. Inorganic Pollutants
Volume 6 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fenvc.2025.1511440
Characterization of the fate of primary and re-precipitated silver nanoparticles in lake water model systems
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- 2 Environmental Science, Baylor University, Waco, United States
The increasing use of silver nanoparticles (nAg) in products and associated releases to the environment necessitates a thorough understanding of the environmental fate and transformations of these potentially toxic nanomaterials to inform environmental risk assessments. Herein, the physical and chemical transformations of nAg in a natural lake water sample were investigated. Lake water systems containing filtered and unfiltered lake water (FLW and UFLW) were spiked with 80 nm polyvinylpyrrolidone-coated nAg (nAgpristine) at 6 μg/L and were maintained under quiescent or mixed conditions in the dark for up to 44 days. Aliquots withdrawn from the water column contained smaller re-precipitated nAg (r-nAg, diameter ~ 26 nm) formed by precipitation of Ag + released by oxidative dissolution of nAgpristine. The number concentrations of r-nAg and nAgpristine were comparable. In FLW, agglomerates of r-nAg and the partially dissolved nAgpristine were formed under quiescent conditions and their settling accelerated after 14 days, but no settling occurred in the mixed systems. In UFLW, heteroagglomerates of r-nAg and the partially dissolved nAgpristine with natural colloids formed and induced sedimentation in both quiescent and mixed systems. A fraction of the r-nAg formed and the larger (> 40 nm) or primary n-Ag (comprised of partially dissolved nAgpristine and its agglomerates with r-nAg or itself) were persistent in the water column for several weeks. Under quiescent conditions, more p-nAg remained suspended in FLW (15.7%, relative to number of nAgpristine dosed) than in UFLW (5.9%), whereas more r-nAg persisted in UFLW (2.6%) than in FLW (0.6%). Thus, the size distributions and fractions of nAg persisting in the water column can change significantly depending on water chemistry and mixing conditions.
Keywords: nanoparticle, Fate and Transport, Ag-NPs, spICP, agglomeration
Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rao, Gao and Ghoshal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Subhasis Ghoshal, Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 0C3, Quebec, Canada
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