Agree with you Don. Would be interesting to see if this is pure producer marketing or if there is a consumer demand at all. Silver in photography is not much after the digitalisation of that industry so there should be an incentive
to try use silver in other applications.
In the meantime, waiting for the research results, I think we should try start viewing bacterial assemblages on our skin, in our nose, mouth and digestive tract etc as small ecosystems where the best thing is to try to keep
a set of nice collaborators healthy, and not kill them together with some culprits at the same time increasing tolerance using antibacterial/biocidal/antimicrobial/antibiotics (or whatever we call these chemicals/materials). They should be saved for more critical
uses than trying to reduce the smell of your socks (which according to some tests doesn't work too well).
However, colloidal silver (a form with probably larger particulate silver) seem to be rather harmless to humans. Some people eat it to cure various diseases (which is even more bogus than non-smelling socks) and get argyria
- blue skin - like smurfs. Nanosilver might be another story but I don't think that is my priority for human tox tests.
I'd like to see some research into why we feel the need to add antibacterial materials to "consumer products ranging from textiles to toys" in the first place.
Don
Donald Abramowitz, CIH
Environmental Health & Safety Officer
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr, PA
OH goody. Tons of research money going to protect the plants and environment and not one damn test to see if it croaks animals like us before it gets loose in the environment. Typical.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
181 Thompson St., #23
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
-----Original Message-----
From: Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <
secretary**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
To: DCHAS-L <
DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Sent: Thu, Jul 30, 2015 7:16 am
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Reducing Environmental Toxicity of Silver Nanoparticles through Shape Control
There's an interesting article on environmental aspects of nanoparticles at the
ES&T web site.
- Ralph
Reducing Environmental Toxicity of Silver
Nanoparticles through Shape
Control
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__pubs.acs.org_doi_full_10.1021_acs.est.5b01711&d=BQIFaQ&c=lb62iw4YL4RFalcE2hQUQealT9-RXrryqt9KZX2qu2s&r=meWM1Buqv4IQ27AlK1OJRjcQl09S1Zta6YXKalY_Io0&m=hF1qzwnxV644CAs1LKqyDod_wvkVm_0Um9US3g4FdPA&s=rOp8niWFn4SmimlqAjXSZuxcnblSZ8t7E5M86Yk7y2Q&e=
The use of antibacterial silver nanomaterials in consumer products ranging
from textiles to toys has given rise to concerns over their environmental
toxicity. These materials, primarily nanoparticles, have been shown to be toxic
to a wide range of organisms; thus methods and materials that reduce their
environmental toxicity while retaining their useful antibacterial properties can
potentially solve this problem. Here we demonstrate that silver nanocubes
display a lower toxicity toward the model plant species Lolium multiflorum while
showing similar toxicity toward other environmentally relevant and model
organisms (Danio rerio and Caenorhabditis elegans) and bacterial species
(Esherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) compared to
quasi-spherical silver nanoparticles and silver nanowires. More specifically, in
the L. multiflorum experiments, the roots of silver nanocube treated plants were
5.3% shorter than the control, while silver nanoparticle treated plant roots
were 39.6% shorter than the control. The findings here could assist in the
future development of new antibacterial products that cause less environmental
toxicity after their intended use.
