Carbon nanotubes: Impacts and behaviour in the terrestrial ecosystem - A review.

For more than twenty years, nanotechnologies have arisen a huge interest and are used in numerous fields. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one of the most used nanomaterials thanks to their excellent optical, mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. All along their lifecycle, CNTs may be spread in the environment during production, use, destruction, reuse or potential accidents in production units or during transportation. For this reason, it is essential to evaluate their behaviour and potential impacts on ecosystems and particularly on the terrestrial ecosystem. After a brief summary of CNT properties, synthesis methods, and applications as well as detection and characterisation techniques, this review will focus on impacts of CNTs on the terrestrial ecosystem, discussing their behaviour in soil, plants and interactions with other pollutants as well as their impacts on soil microbiota, macrobiota and plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]