Today, carbon-based materials are widely incorporated in diverse commercial products due to their unique physicochemical properties. Sadly, the properties which make them attractive can also be sources of concern. As the number of industrial applications and the production of these materials will increase in the near future, graphene-based materials (GBMs) will soon enter the environment (i.e. water, air, soil). This raises the question: what about their potential environmental and health impacts? Biodegradability is one of the key parameters, which drives the fate of these materials in the environment and in the environmental organisms. In the environmental context little is still known, but concerns are growing.
We investigate the ability of graphene (G) and graphene oxide (GO) to interact and to be degraded by environmental bacteria. Are indigenous environmental bacterial strains potent to transform these materials? To date, studies have demonstrated diverse cytotoxicity effects of these materials to bacteria but few studies have focused on the interactions between 2D carbon-based nanomaterials and environmental bacteria.
FLAG-ERA , JTC, 2021-2025
