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Carbon nanotubes the new asbestos?

— PHOTO: AFP

A prototype of the world’s narrowest Carbon nanotube is shown in this file photo.

LONDON: Scientists have warned that carbon nanotubes could pose a cancer risk similar to that of asbestos, saying its use should be restricted to protect human health.

Carbon nanotubes were developed in 1991 and have proved extremely useful, conferring great strength while being very light. They are superb conductors of heat and electricity and have been touted as wonder materials that could form the basis of a new generation of electronics.

In most products containing nanotubes, such as car body panels, tennis rackets, yacht masts and bike frames, the fibres are embedded in composite materials, which provide strength and lightness. In this form the cylindrical molecules of carbon are likely to be relatively harmless.

But researchers said further studies were necessary to confirm it; it cannot be assumed that people could not be exposed to carbon nanotubes held in materials. Scientists will have to show that exposure from products is safe, said Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington. “What happens as you demolish products or throw them away in landfill sites? Is there a chance of carbon nanotubes coming out then and exposure occurring? We simply don’t know the answer to that and that needs to be addressed,” he said. Anthony Seaton, an expert in asbestos-related diseases at the Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, said: “Asbestos started in the same way — people used it experimentally.” The similarity between the size and structure of carbon nanotubes and asbestos fibres has always posed a question on how the former could affect lungs. The new research shows that, in mice, the tubes, like asbestos, cause inflammation of the mesothelium, the slippery membrane around some bodily organs. With asbestos fibres, the inflammation is a stage leading towards cancer.

The researchers, whose report is in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, compared the effects of short and long nanotubes. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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