Posted on 12/24/2008 5:59:59 AM PST by nicolezmomma
Widespread use of nanoscale silver will challenge regulatory agencies to balance important potential benefits against the possibility of significant environmental risk, highlighting the need to identify research priorities concerning this emerging technology, according to a new report released today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN).
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
The issue of assessing the risks posed by nanoscale silver was highlighted after the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) San Francisco office earlier this year imposed a landmark fine of over $200,000 on a California company selling computer keyboards and mouses coated with nanosilver. EPA issued the fine on the grounds that the products should have been registered under federal pesticide law because of the company's germ-killing claims.
Similar fines have not been imposed since, but the action is increasing attention on the potential risks posed by nanoscale silver and oversight of nanotechnology as a whole. There currently are more than 200 manufacturer-identified nanosilver products on the market and contained in the online nanotechnology consumer products inventory maintained by PEN —everything from baby carriages and air filters to athletic socks and coin-operated washing machines. See http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer/ to search the inventory.
Silver itself is classified as an environmental hazard by EPA because it is more toxic to aquatic plants and animals than any metal except mercury. Even if a nanoparticle itself is not especially toxic, silver nanoparticles increase the effectiveness of delivering toxic silver ions to locations where they can cause toxicity.
ping
I guess we’ll have to go back to nano lead...
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
Silver has been used for centuries to keep water and milk fresh.
During the westward expansion pioneers used to put silver coins in their water barrels to keep it from going rank.
Colloidal silver has been used as a homeopathic remedies and there are even food storage containers that use silver.
http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/oso-fresh-micro-silver-everyday-food-storage-containers-set-of-36
Colloidal silver isn't Nano Silver. Nano Silver being in washing machines, keyboards, whatever else means this stuff will get in the water supply and stay. It also means that as the use of Nano Silver increases, people will be exposed to it more and more. I'm not into that much 'help'.
Uhhh, yes it is. Silver is an element... an atom either has 47 protons or it doesn't. Nano, on the other hand, describes a unit of measure. It is one-billionth of something. Nanotechnology is manufacturing at the scale of nanometers (i.e. really small). Nanograms are incredibly small amounts of things (a billionth of the weight of a paper clip). Either way, the amount of silver we are talking about here is less than your exposure from the silver absorbed by your skin from the jewelry you are wearing.
I'm surprised that these morons aren't whining about dihydrogen monoxide, too. Scientific illiterates...
The Luddites are attacking anything with the word nano in it. Typical alarmist hyperbole.
Nanotechnology is, formally, both the use technology and materials science of things that range from 1 to 100 nM (1 nM = 1X10-9 meters – by comparison the wavelength of extreme UV is 40 nM).
Nano materials can be dangerous in a dry, powdered form however, as a bound material — e.g. locked in another material such as some form of binder — the material is no more or less dangerous than elemental forms. Key dry nano dangers are primarily respiratory as such small materials are difficult to remove from the lung — similar to smoking.
The key to nano material function is, generally, surface area. If you think about it a bit, as you grind to or self assemble to these very small pieces, the exposed surface area of the given material dramatically increases as compared to a similar, unitary, mass of the same material.
Things that depend upon surface area to function, such as catalytic reactions, work much better in the presence of these materials and, indeed, the amount of catalytic material required by weight can be dramatically reduced.
Nano materials that are delivered to the user that are bound (locked)in another material do not represent a risk to the end user. Indeed, you are more likely to have a problem with out gassing from poorly cured plastics than bound nano materials.
Because it is new and strange, nano technology is generating a lot of silly fear. the Luddites will always try to scare folks because, after all, they are Luddites.
Like any other material or material form the manufacturer needs to use caution in the manufacturing process but, at least to date, consumer products — be they pharmaceuticals or hard products — are not and should not be a problem.
Let’s all get nanoexcited about nanopolution.
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