Carbon Nanotubes Found in Parisian Children’s Lungs

For the first time, carbon nanotubes have been found in the lungs of children living in Paris.

The discovery comes from a study in which researchers examined fluid and/or cells from the lungs of 69 asthmatic children living in Paris.  The study, published in Ebiomedicine (which is open source), focused on the fine particles from air pollution which are able to penetrate lower airways.  According to the researchers, much of the inhaled particle matter in the children’s lungs consisted of man-made carbon nanotubes (CNTs).

As it turns out, man-made CNTs are not restricted to high-tech nanotechnology labs.  They have also been detected in car exhaust, dust, Indian spider webs, and ice cores.  According to a chemist at Rice university, the catalytic converters in cars somewhat resemble Rice’s high pressure carbon monoxide process to make CNTs, so it is not surprising that they can be found outside of labs.

According to the researchers, the CNTs found in the children’s lungs were similar to those found in Parisian car exhaust and dust, which combined with the fact that CNTs were found in all of the samples led them to conclude that humans in general are regularly exposed to CNTs.

As any nano student who’s been through one of Deakin’s toxicology courses would know, this could potentially be really bad…or it could be okay, depending on the type of nanotubes.  There are some studies that have found CNTs can create an immune response similar to asbestos.  Others have found them to have little adverse effect on health.  Not all CNTs are the same, and different types of tubes have different health effects.  In this paper the researchers found many different kinds of tubes – short and long, single and multi-walled – in the children’s lungs.  For example, the nanotubes found in the dust and the car exhaust were similar, but not the same; the dust  had more multi-walled CNTs.

For the time being, (neither I nor) the researchers can conclude that the CNTs from pollution cause a decline in lung function, at least not without more research.  At the moment I wouldn’t worry about it too much.  For one, the researchers only studied asthmatic children, who are already more vulnerable to pollutants.  Also, if CNTs are a product of burning fossil fuels like gasoline, then we have likely been breathing them for a long time (much longer than asbestos).  Finally, it isn’t practical to wear a respirator all the time anyway.  However it is fairly common knowledge that air pollution is bad for your lungs.  Perhaps the better thing to do is simply to put some thought into technologies that could reduce air pollution, CNTs or not.