Engineered nanoparticles (ENPs): Unexplored potential and limitations

Abstract

The rapid growing industry of global economic importance is exploring the novel material synthesized at the nanoscale. Engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) have been manufactured with specific shape, size, surface properties and unique functionalities such as catalytic behaviour, increased strength, improved thermal and electrical conductivity. These advancements have opened the door to new applications in biomedicine, nanoenergetic materials and functional nanocomposites including cancer therapy, drug delivery, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, biomolecule detection, and antimicrobial activities. In cancer therapies, nanoparticulate delivery systems allow ENPs greater penetration of therapeutic and diagnostic substances within the body while posing fewer risks than conventional cancer therapies. Evidences suggested that ENPs offer some substantial danger to the environment by its toxicological effects when they are exposed to the environment, which leads to the chronic issues of nanopollution. The aquatic environment is at the greatest risk from ENPs, as it serves as a sink for nearly all environmental contaminants. Despite these challenges, ENPs holds promise to in different field as well as minimize environmental pollution, by employing the innovative environmental remediation methods. There are gaps in understanding the fate of ENPs in the environment hence more stringent and critical research is the need of the hour. It also call for the advancement of tools and techniques that can accurately quantify and analyze the uptake of ENPs into biological systems.This review includes the different types of ENPs their sources and physiochemical characteristics and the ultimate fate of these ENPs in the environment.