Environ Health Toxicol.  2011 ;26(1):e2011002.

Toxicity Assessment of Titanium (IV) Oxide Nanoparticles Using Daphnia magna (Water Flea)

• Bang SH
• Le TH
• Lee SK
• Kim P
• Kim JS
• Min J

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Titanium dioxide (TiO2), a common nanoparticle widely used in industrial production, is one of nano-sized materials. The purpose of this study was to determine the acute and chronic toxicity of TiO2 using different size and various concentrations on Daphnia magna.
METHODS
In the acute toxicity test, four concentrations (0, 0.5, 4, and 8 mM) for TiO2 with 250 or 500 nm and five concentrations (0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1 mM) for TiO2 with 21 nm were selected to analyze the toxic effect to three groups of ten daphnia neonates over 96 hours. In addition, to better understand their toxicity, chronic toxicity was examined over 21 days using 0, 1, and 10 mM for each type of TiO2.
RESULTS
Our results showed that all organisms died before the reproduction time at a concentration of 10 mM of TiO2. In addition, the exposure of anatase (21 nm) particles were more toxic to D. magna, comparing with that of anatase (250 nm) and rutile (500 nm) particles.
CONCLUSIONS
This study indicated that TiO2 had adverse impacts on the survival, growth and reproduction of D. magna after the 21days exposure. In addition, the number of test organisms that were able to reproduce neonates gradually were reduced as the size of TiO2 tested was decreased.

Keyword

Titanium dioxide; Daphnia magna; Size-dependent toxicity; Acute toxicity; Chronic toxicity

MeSH Terms

Daphnia
Humans
Infant, Newborn
Nanoparticles
Reproduction
Titanium
Toxicity Tests, Acute
Titanium