The toxicity evaluation of nano-trititanate with bactericidal properties in vitro

Abstract

Three forms of nano-trititanate (H₂Ti₃O₇ nanomaterial) were prepared by a hydrothermal method to replace nano-TiO₂ for sterilizing the environment. The bactericidal capabilities of these nano-trititanates were observed to be more significant compared to nano-TiO₂ both with and without exposure to UV light. For the future commercial applications of those nano-trititanates, we investigated their cytotoxicity and genotoxicity to HEp-2 cells. As data in our study shows, nanoplate, one of the nano-trititanates, possesses the lowest toxicity to HEp-2 cells. The results indicated that the shape and length of the material only affect the toxicity of nano-trititanate but not its bactericidal effect. Thus, through manipulating the shape or length of nano-trititanate, we may obtain a more powerful bactericidal reagent with lower toxicity to the human body.

Keywords::

• Particle toxicology
• nanotoxicology
• nano-trititanate
• E. coli
• HEp-2 cells

Acknowledgements

We thank Yanxia Han and Bu Yang in Xi'an Jiaotong/Liverpool University for manuscript proof reading.

Declaration of interest: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10704051, No. 30870683, and No. 50950110349), the Open Grant of State Key Laboratory for Biomacromolecules and the Suzhou Nano special project (No. ZXG0713). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.