Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are being increasingly produced for various applications. In order to evaluate potential environmental impacts, knowledge on their environmental releases is needed. In this study, we present a country-specific assessment of the flows to the environment from production to end-of-life of nano-Ag, -TiO₂ and -ZnO within Europe. This paper includes a revision of the different applications in which the ENMs are used and their shares in Europe, as well as the distributions of ENM production, manufacturing and consumption over European countries using a surrogate-variable approach. Material flow analysis was used to quantify the probability distributions of ENM releases from each lifecycle stage to air, water and soil. Results show that the main applications of nano-TiO₂ and nano-ZnO are in cosmetics and personal care products, while nano-Ag is mainly used for electronic printing. While the production of these ENMs takes place in a limited number of countries, manufacturing and consumption are more homogeneously spread over Europe. In general, sludge-treated soil is the environmental compartment receiving the highest releases, while recycling is a technical compartment in the waste management system receiving significant ENM shares, especially for nano-Ag. Due to different waste management systems and sizes of countries, releases to surface water and soils normalised by the areas of these compartments vary by several orders of magnitude between countries, showing the relevance of a country-specific model. The results of this study can be used for the country-specific assessment of environmental fate and risks of ENMs and ENM-containing products.

中文翻译：

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在整个生命周期中特定国家/地区的工程纳米材料排放量清单

工程纳米材料（ENM）越来越多地用于各种应用。为了评估潜在的环境影响，需要有关其环境释放的知识。在这项研究中，我们对欧洲范围内从纳米Ag，-TiO ₂和-ZnO的生产到报废的流向环境的国家/地区进行了评估。本文包括对使用ENM的不同应用及其在欧洲的份额的修订，以及使用替代变量法在欧洲国家中ENM的生产，制造和消费分布。物质流分析用于量化从每个生命周期阶段到空气，水和土壤的ENM释放的概率分布。结果表明，纳米TiO ₂的主要应用纳米ZnO用于化妆品和个人护理产品，而纳米Ag主要用于电子印刷。这些ENM的生产仅在少数几个国家/地区进行，而制造和消费则更均匀地分布在欧洲。通常，污泥处理过的土壤是排放量最高的环境隔间，而回收利用是废物管理系统中的技术隔间，其中ENM占有很大份额，尤其是对于纳米银。由于不同的废物管理系统和国家/地区的规模不同，各国之间通过这些隔室的面积归一化的地表水和土壤释放量在几个国家之间也相差几个数量级，这说明了针对特定国家/地区的模型的重要性。