Possibilities of single particle – ICP-MS for determining/characterizing titanium dioxide and silver nanoparticles in human urine

Publication date: Available online 9 April 2019Source: Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and BiologyAuthor(s): Kamala Badalova, Paloma Herbello-Hermelo, Pilar Bermejo-Barrera, Antonio Moreda-PiñeiroAbstractObjectiveThe current use of nanoparticles in personal care and cosmetics, food safety, agriculture, medicine and pharmacy has led to a growing concern on the toxicity of these emerging materials to humans and also to the environment. Nanoparticles assessment (determination and size distribution) is a challenge mainly due to limitations of the current analytical instrumentation, but also because nanoparticles in foodstuff and environmental samples are usually found at low concentrations. The scenario is even more critical when dealing with clinical samples, mainly when trying to assess nanoparticles at basal levels in complex samples such as blood and urine. The aim of this paper is to find data regarding the presence of nanoparticles at basal levels in urine human samples.MethodsThe use of single particle – inductively couple plasma – mass spectrometry (sp-ICP-MS) has been explored to determine and characterize silver and titanium dioxide nanoparticles in human urine. Urine samples were directly diluted (1:5 to 1:10) with 1%(v/v) glycerol before sp-ICP-MS measurements, and efforts were made for validating the over-all procedure.ResultsThe limit of detection and quantification for Ag NPs were 5.72 × 103 and 1.91 × 104 Ag NPs mL-1, respectively; whereas, va...
Source: Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology - Category: Biochemistry Source Type: research