Table 1.
Median L(E)C50 values for all organisms except bacteria and median MIC for bacteria for Ag, CuO and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) and the respective metal salts
| Group of organisms | Median L(E)C50 or MIC, on compound basis, mg/L (number of data)* | Median L(E)C50 or MIC, on metal basis, mg metal/L (number of data)* | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ag NPs | CuO NPs | ZnO NPs | Ag salt | Cu salt | Zn salt | |
| Crustaceans | 0.01 (17) | 2.1 (8) | 2.3 (10) | 0.00085 (8) | 0.024 (8) | 1.3 (6) |
| Algae | 0.36 (17) | 2.8 (5) | 0.08 (5) | 0.0076 (10) | 0.07 (20) | 0.09 (8) |
| Fish | 1.36 (17) | 100 (1) | 3.0 (4) | 0.058 (4) | 0.28 (19) | 7.5 (3) |
| Nematodes | 3.34 (21) | Not found (0) | 39 (6) | 4.8 (4) | 19.4 (6) | 49 (6) |
| Bacteria | 7.10 (46) | 200 (13) | 500 (15) | 3.3 (27) | 32 (13) | 30 (9) |
| Yeast | 7.90 (14) | 17 (4) | 121 (7) | 2.16 (5) | 11.1 (4) | 78 (2) |
| Mammalian cells in vitro | 11.3 (25) | 25 (21) | 43 (25) | 2 (18) | 53 (10) | 9.8 (11) |
| V. fischeri a | 32 (2) | 73.6 (4) | 4.3 (4) | 5.7 (2) | 0.78 (7) | 3.2 (7) |
| Protozoa | 38 (7) | 124 (6) | 11.7 (9) | 1.5 (3) | 0.43 (14) | 7 (9) |
| Lowest L(E)C50, MIC | 0.01 | 2.1 | 0.08 | 0.00085 | 0.024 | 0.09 |
| Most sensitive organisms | Crustaceans | Crustaceans | Algae | Crustaceans | Crustaceans | Algae |
|
Classification (EU-Directive 93/67/EEC (CEC 1996)b |
Very toxic | Toxic | Very toxic | Very toxic | Very toxic | Very toxic |
| Classification (Sanderson et al. 2003; Blaise et al. 2008)c | Extremely toxic | Toxic | Extremely toxic | Extremely toxic | Extremely toxic | Extremely toxic |
*In the brackets next to the median value, the number of data used to derive the median value is presented
Data are summarized from Supplementary Tables S3–S8 and are arranged throughout according to the decreasing sensitivity (increasing median L(E)C50 values) of test organisms to silver nanoparticles. The L(E)C50 and MIC numbers are from the following articles: Borovanský and Riley (1989), Ershov et al. (1997), McCloskey et al. (1996), Lin et al. (1996), Zhao et al. (1998), Mobley et al. (1999), Mastin and Rodgers (2000), Grass and Rensing (2001), Franklin et al. (2002), Graff et al. (2003), Harmon et al. (2003), Teitzel and Parsek (2003), Yilmaz (2003), De Boeck et al. (2004), Hsieh et al. (2004), Jonker et al. (2004), de Oliveira-Filho et al. (2004), Shakibaie and Harati (2004), Apte et al. (2005), Cho et al. (2005), Heijerick et al. (2005), Lee et al. (2005)¸ Chen et al. (2006), Hiriart-Baer et al. (2006), Jeng and Swanson (2006), Kungolos et al. (2006), Madoni and Romeo (2006), Panáček et al. (2006), Dechsakulthorn et al. (2007), Franklin et al. (2007), Gallego et al. (2007), Zhang et al. (2007), Calafato et al. (2008), Griffitt et al. (2008), Heinlaan et al. (2008), Hernández-Sierra et al. (2008), Jin et al. (2008), Karlsson et al. (2008), Kim et al. (2008), Martínez-Castanón et al. (2008), Mortimer et al. (2008), Navarro et al. (2008), Padmavathy and Vijayaraghavan (2008), Ruparelia et al. (2008), Zhu et al. (2008), Aruoja et al. (2009), Chae et al. (2009), Foldbjerg et al. (2009), Jain et al. (2009), Kasemets et al. (2009), Kim et al. 2009a, b, Kvitek et al. (2009), Lewis and Keller (2009), Lin et al. (2009), Liu et al. (2009), Ma et al. (2009), Oliva et al. (2009), Park and Heo (2009), Pavlica et al. (2009), Sovova et al. (2009), Teodorovic et al. (2009), Wang et al. (2009), Zhu et al. (2009), Ahamed et al. (2010), Baker et al. (2010), Blinova et al. (2010), Chen et al. (2010), Contreras et al. (2010), Ebrahimpour et al. (2010), Kennedy et al. (2010), Kim et al. (2010), Laban et al. (2010), Liu et al. (2010), Meyer et al. (2010), Miao et al. (2010), Mortimer et al. (2010), Nowrouzi et al. (2010), Panjehpour et al. (2010), Song et al. (2010), Suresh et al. (2010), Wang and Guan (2010), Wong et al. (2010), Alsop and Wood (2011), Bao et al. (2011), Dua et al. (2011), Emami-Karvani and Chehrazi (2011), Foldbjerg et al. (2011), He et al. (2011), Kim et al. (2011), Kurvet et al. (2011), Lipovsky et al. (2011), Ma et al. (2011), Majzlik et al. (2011), McLaughlin and Bonzongo (2011), Mortimer et al. (2011), Murphy et al. (2011), Naddafi et al. (2011), Niazi et al. (2011), Poynton et al. (2011), Xie et al. (2011), Xiong et al. (2011), Yu et al. (2011), Zhao et al. (2011), Albers et al. (2012), Ansari et al. (2012), Binaeian et al. (2012), Blinova et al. (2012), Brandt et al. (2012), Böhmert et al. (2012), Cao et al. (2012), Ellegaard-Jensen et al. (2012), Govindasamy and Rahuman (2012), Greulich et al. (2012), Haase et al. (2012), Harrington et al. (2012), Hassan et al. (2012), He et al. (2012), Hoheisel et al. (2012), Jo et al. (2012), Kashiwada et al. (2012), Kennedy et al. (2012), Kim et al. (2012), Kwok et al. (2012), Li et al. (2012a, b) Lim et al. (2012), Little et al. (2012), Manusadžianas et al. (2012), Monteiro et al. (2012), Oukarroum et al. (2012), Patra et al. (2012), Perreault et al. (2012), Piret et al. 2012a, b, Poynton et al. (2012), Rallo et al. (2012), Seiffert et al. (2012), Shaw et al. (2012), Shi et al. (2012), Unger and Lück (2012), Vargas-Reus et al. (2012), Wang et al. (2012a, b), Wu et al. (2012), Yang et al. (2012), Zhang et al. (2012a, b), Zhao et al. (2012), Zhao and Wang (2012), Debabrata and Giasuddin (2013), Juganson et al. (2013), Kasemets et al. (2013), Wu and Zhou (2013)
a V. fischeri data were retrieved separately from other bacteria, because V. fischeri (also an ISO (2010) test organism) was considered as non-target aquatic species
bClassification of NPs and their soluble salts to hazard categories adheres to EU-Directive 93/67/EEC (CEC 1996) and is based on the lowest median L(E)C50 value of the three key environmental organisms: algae, crustaceans and fish. <1 mg/L = very toxic to aquatic organisms; 1–10 mg/L = toxic to aquatic organisms; 10–100 mg/L = harmful to aquatic organisms; >100 mg/L = not classified
cAnalogous to classification of CEC (1996) except that one category is added: <0.1 mg/L = extremely toxic to aquatic organisms