title: Development of Comparative Toxicity Potentials of TiO2Nanoparticles for Use in Life Cycle Assessment.
abstract: Studies have shown that releases of nanoparticles may take place through the life cycle of products embedding nanomaterials, thus resulting in potential impacts on ecosystems and human health. While several life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have assessed such products, only a few of them have quantitatively addressed the toxic impacts caused by released nanoparticles, thus leading to potential biases in their conclusions. Here, we address this gap and aim to provide a framework for calculating characterization factors or comparative toxicity potentials (CTP) for nanoparticles and derive CTP values for TiO2nanoparticles (TiO2-NP) for use in LCA. We adapted the USEtox 2.0 consensus model to integrate the SimpleBox4Nano fate model, and we populated the resulting model with TiO2-NP specific data. We thus calculated CTP values for TiO2nanoparticles for air, water, and soil emission compartments for freshwater ecotoxicity and human toxicity, both cancer effects and noncancer effects. Our results appeared plausible after benchmarking with CTPs for other nanoparticles and substances present in the USEtox database, while large differences were observed with CTP values for TiO2nanoparticles published in earlier studies. Assumptions, which were performed in those previous studies because of lack of data and knowledge at the time they were made, primarily explain such discrepancies. For future assessment of potential toxic impacts of TiO2nanoparticles in LCA studies, we therefore recommend the use of our calculated CTP.
authors.affiliation: Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment (QSA), Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark , Bygningstorvet 116B, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ettrup
authors.affiliation: Quantis, EPFL Innovation Park , Bât D, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kounina
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark , Building 115, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Steffen Foss
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Department of Environmental Science, Radboud University Nijmegen , P.O. Box 9010, NL-6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johannes A J
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Meesters
authors.affiliation: Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment (QSA), Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark , Bygningstorvet 116B, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Eldbjørg B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Vea
authors.affiliation: Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment (QSA), Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark , Bygningstorvet 116B, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0445-7983
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Laurent
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D005618:Fresh Water; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D053758:Nanoparticles; D012987:Soil; D014025:Titanium / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; C009495:titanium dioxide; D014025:Titanium