The Environmental Fate of C60 Fullerenes: A Holistic Approach

The manufacture and use of carbon-based nanoparticles, for which C60 fullerenes can be considered a proxy, has grown exponentially in the past decade, and nanotechnology is now a multi-billion dollar industry, spanning disciplines such as cosmetics, biotechnology, and agriculture. Despite this, almost nothing is known of the fate of these compounds in the environment. Based upon the strong radical scavenging properties of many of these substances there are a variety of microbial and photochemical-mediated oxidative fates that will transform the physicochemical properties and control the residence time of these compounds in nature. It is essential that these fates, as well as the fates of the products of the degradation of carbon nanoparticles, are known. For instance, conversion of C60 fullerenes to hydroxylated or carboxylated analogs will shift the manner in which they partition between soils and sediments and water as well as how they interact with cell membranes. This paper combines our findings on the microbial activity of C60 fullerenes, one of the most common types of manufactured carbon nanoparticles, along with recent literature to develop potential chemical decay trajectories in oxidative environmental settings. We show what is known about the environmental fate of this type of nanomaterial and also areas where further research is needed.