Implications of Engineered Nanomaterials in Drinking Water Sources

Nanotechnology has grown rapidly over the last two decades, leading to advances in science and engineering and to releases of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) to drinking water sources. Conventional drinking water treatment processes remove sub-micron particles, including natural nanomaterials (e.g., viruses); however, the novel shapes, configurations, and properties of ENMs may enable their persistence. This review of the state of knowledge of ENM production and release, environmental fate and transport, detection in aquatic environments, and removal in drinking water treatment shows that detection methods and source water data are limited. In the absence of adequate methods for detecting ENMs in the environment, models have been developed and predict that ENM concentrations in surface water are likely to be very low (<< 1 mu g/L), and research of physicochemical transformations of ENMs in the environment suggests that they will be transformed into forms that are more likely to be removed during drinking water treatment.