The University received a $15-million grant to continue research about nanoparticles, according to a Duke News press release.
The grant—funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Environmental Protection Agency—will allow researchers to continue learning about where nanoparticles accumulate, how they interact with other chemicals and how they affect the environment, the release stated.
This research will occur at the Center for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology—which, after being founded in 2008, has been studying the effects of nonmaterial exposure on organisms and ecosystems. The center is headquartered at the Pratt School of Engineering.
“As we look to the next five years, we will be evaluating more complex nanomaterials in more realistic natural environments such as agricultural lands and water treatment systems where these materials are likely to be found," Mark Wiesner, director of CEINT, said in the release.
In the past five years, CEINT has had many revolutionary discoveries such as finding that naturally occurring nanomaterials outnumber engineered particles and that engineered nanoparticles change once they enter the environment and can cause environmental stress. In addition, they found that nanoparticles can be visualized even in complex environmental samples and that it is possible to estimate current and future volume of engineered nanomaterials.
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