Just How Toxic Are Carbon Nanotubes?

"How Toxic are CNTs?"

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"I'll tell you how toxic. We found CNTs in your soil, that's how toxic"

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The headline then story exemplifies a nonsequitur.

They didn't find them in soil, they put them in soil all on their own. It's pretty easy to misinterpret the brief description of the article, maybe we should consider beefing them up to give more of an idea of what the article is actually about.

As for the article, they're measuring the toxicity for better or for worse. The article leads off on saying how many applications have been found that can utilize the CNT's, but points out that there may be health risks, but no one is sure for certain.

By studying the toxicity of the soil samples, they can add some evidence to prove / disprove some of the anti-health allegations made against the CNT's.

Mizuti, you wrote:

'...As for the article, they're measuring the toxicity for better or for worse.....'

and the article says:

'.... In ongoing research efforts to determine just how toxic they actually are, researchers at Texas Tech University have come up with a new method for detecting CNTs in soils....'

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But even with you repreating the claim, curiously, it still doesn't make sense.

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If toxicity is being measured, what it the measurement? LD50?

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Concentration is not a measure of how toxic something is.

Oh, hey! You're right!

Well, that's weird. Upon rereading the article in full, they really are just testing for concentrations of the already established to be toxic CNT's.

Perhaps they just wanted to include more buzzwords to invoke more interest in the article?

Everything is toxic at certain levels. I think we just need to accept that, be as careful as possible, and move on.

If we scare ourselves out of utilizing/exploring new technologies and materials, we will never reach the point of developing alternative energy and storage systems...............and a lot of other cool stuff.

<...Everything is toxic at certain levels...>

Exactly! The LD50 for liquid H₂O in humans is around 18 gallons, for example, which is interesting though one might drown in just a bucketful...

Or they could just drink themselves to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

'....The LD50 for liquid H₂O in humans is around 18 gallons....'

18 gallons?!?!!

No way! The LD99 would be far less than 18 gallons. 18 gallons of water is a mass comparable to the body mass.

LD50 would be far less, less than 3 gallons for oral administration, and probably even less if administered IV.

Wrong question from the getgo. Fundamentally, toxicity IS dose dependent. With very few exceptions, if any, very low doses are harmless, or even beneficial. No surprise, as life did not develop in an ideal, pristine environment. Had to select chemical pathways, select measures to deal with some poisons too.

The problem with the novel forms of nano this and nano that, that they are novel forms of matter, at least in any real quantity. They are not simply a different chemical. A carbon nanotube, or sheet not dissolving in normal solvents, cannot be eliminated from biological systems. What do they do then there? It is the $64thousand question. And your ignorance is not an excuse.

But I have an antique example. Miners get silicosis. Mostly stone dust and carbon dust + some pure quartz settles into the lung. Stone is dissolved in time, sort of. The other 2 remains an irritant, killing the lung, and the miner decades before they get old.

Generally, carbon is insoluble, so is quartz, so is nanotube or nanosheet. Should we not use them? No, the case is not at all that.

But ASSUMING, that uncontrolled release is ok, is asinine. But again, uncontrolled release of chlorine is asinine too. And so is arguing along this line, except in some academic circles.

I'm still mad because I can't get asbestos gasket material for my wood stove.