Eckelman Selected for ES&T and ES&T Letters Early Career Scientists Virtual Issue
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Research Matthew J. Eckelman was selected by the journals Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) and Environmental Science & Technology Letters (ES&T Letters) for inclusion in their Early Career Scientists Virtual Issue. The issue, which highlights 24 early career scientists with research of outstanding quality, was created to recognize “the critical role that early career investigators play in discovering new phenomena and pioneering new approaches for solving old problems,” and to “shine a light on rising Early Career Scientists [who are] providing valuable contributions to the environmental science and technology field.” The issue features Eckelman’s work in a paper titled “Life Cycle Assessment and Release Studies for 15 Nanosilver-Enabled Consumer Products: Investigating Hotspots and Patterns of Contribution.”
Life Cycle Assessment and Release Studies for 15 Nanosilver-Enabled Consumer Products: Investigating Hotspots and Patterns of Contribution
Leila Pourzahedi, Marina Vance, and Matthew J. Eckelman*
Environ. Sci. Technol., 2017, 51 (12), pp 7148–7158
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b05923
“Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are used widely as antimicrobial agents in, for example, wound dressings, textiles, or food storage containers. To evaluate their benefits against impacts on health and the environment, it is important to understand direct impacts related to the release and toxicity of AgNPs as well as indirect impacts from the production of the AgNPs, including silver mining and processing, as well as impacts from the production of the various materials containing AgNPs. In this paper, Eckelman and coworkers present a comprehensive evaluation of the direct and indirect environmental and health impacts of 15 AgNP-enabled consumer products. Their analysis elegantly disentangles the interplay of very different types of impacts and demonstrates that, depending on high or low AgNP content, the total impacts can be dominated by the direct impacts of the AgNPs or by the impacts from the production of the main components of the product, such as plastic or cotton. This is a highly valuable basis for the design of AgNP-enabled products.”