Author(s): PV Vidya and KC Chitra

Abstract: The acute toxicity of three nanoparticles, such as aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃-NPs), silicon dioxide (SiO₂-NPs) and titanium dioxide (TiO₂-NPs), were assessed on the freshwater fish, Oreochromis mossambicus for 96 h. Nanoparticles with different sizes as 16.7 nm of Al₂O₃, 1 nm of SiO₂ and 11.4 nm of TiO₂ were evaluated for the median lethal concentration by probit analysis. Different concentrations of nanoparticles of Al₂O₃-NPs at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 mg/ L; SiO₂-NPs at 5, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150 and 175 mg/ L; and TiO₂-NPs at 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200 and 225 mg/ L were exposed to fishes for 96 h maintaining 10 animals per group. Mortality of fish was observed and recorded throughout the experiment. Median lethal concentrations that was determined by probit analysis is found to be 40 mg/L for Al₂O₃-NPs, 120 mg/L for SiO₂-NPs and 164 mg/L for TiO₂-NPs. The results proved that nanoparticles showed acute toxicity to fish when exposed for 96 h and this could reveal the fact that exposure of nanoparticles may result in adverse toxic effects to fish that eventually affects the health status of aquatic ecosystem.

Pages: 327-332  |  1872 Views  380 Downloads

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