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Hélène Pauwels, BRGM (France)
Lise Cary, BRGM (France)
Jérôme Labille, CEREGE (France)
Claire Rollin, INERIS (France)
Marie Laure Janex Habibi, Suez Environnement (France)
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The increasing use of engineered nanoparticles for industrial and household purposes will inevitably lead to their introduction into different environmental compartments. Release to environment may originate from manufacture facilities, wastewater treatment plant, and may also occur accidentally during transport or caused by any malicious intent. Moreover, it may have non-point source origin such as wear from nanoparticles-bearing materials. Whatever the release process, the nanoparticles will finally come down in soils or water. Nanoparticles may also be deliberately laid in soils or injected in water and used for attenuation of contamination. Finally, after a transfer from soils, groundwaters appear to be one of the potential receptors. Groundwaters being largely used as drinking water resource, any contamination may have impacts on humans. Through occurrence of groundwater-dependent terrestrial ecosystems or drainage of groundwater by surface waters (rivers, lakes), contamination of groundwater may also threaten wildlife. Consequently, assessing the risk of groundwater contamination by nanoparticles is worth studying but it requires the knowledge of their mobility and reactivity in waters. The AquaNano project, funded by the French Agency for Research aims at identifying the processes involved during the transfer of a selection of engineered particles within groundwater. Selection includes organic (C60) as well as inorganic (CeO2, TiO2, Fe2O3, ZnO) nanoparticles. Approach developed by AquaNano will move from lab experiments toward field studies, with a view to the representativeness of experimental conditions. In consequence, work has to be conducted in natural waters, which requires analytical procedures for identification and quantification of nanoparticles, since the natural background level of both particles and chemical element may be significant. Nanoparticles dispersion in water is highly dependent on several physico-chemical parameters, such as pH, temperature, ionic strength and concentrations of some compounds. Experimental conditions for dispersion investigations are carefully defined according to the mean composition of groundwaters which is highly dependent on the aquifer lithology. Representative French and European aquifers are taken into account.
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