Over the past decade, the development of nanomaterials has progressed rapidly toward their eventual use in products ranging from solar cells to medicines. However, tests of possible toxic effects of these substances on human health and the environment have been slow to get under way. Recently, an experiment raised concern about the soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules commonly known as buckyballs. Now, other chemists confirm that finding and report an innovation that might disarm potentially toxic buckyballs.
To preempt the same kind of public backlash that genetically modified crops have received, governments and industry are starting to look at nanomaterial toxicity more closely, says Kristen Kulinowski, executive director of Rice University’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology in Houston. “Over the last year and a half, there’s been an enormous upswell in interest and funding for research into the environmental health and safety of nanomaterials,” she says.