Toxicity assessment of silica nanoparticles, functionalised silica nanoparticles, and HASE-grafted silica nanoparticles.

Numerous nanomaterials have recently been developed, and numerous practical applications have been found in water treatment, medicine, cosmetics, and engineering. Associative polymers, such as hydrophobically modified alkali-soluble emulsion (HASE) systems are involved in several applications and have been extensively studied due to their ability to form three-dimensional networked gels. However, the data on the potential environmental effects of this polymers are scarce. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of functionalisation of silica nanoparticles, and coupling of functionalised silica nanoparticles to the associative polymer HASE on their toxicity. Thus, acute and chronic toxicity tests included a modified acute test (72 h) using daphnies, algae, and plants as model organisms. Gradient of toxicity varied with the tested organisms. Our results revealed that the functionalised nanoparticules and NP grafted polymer cause a global decrease in toxicity compared to commercial nanoparticule and HASE polymer.