Figure 1

Published literature on release form nanocomposites. The “nanorelease” picture in terms of how many research articles have been published. (A) Using the ICON online database of nanotechnology environmental health and safety research, we report the number of articles identified by the “exposure” and “hazard” search terms, and compare these to the release studies we identified through multiple search engines. Considerable attention has been directed toward examining intrinsic hazards (83%) of nanomaterials, and less on potential exposure (16%) and least on release from nanocomposite (0.8%). (B) Since the first nanorelease study we identified in 1997, understanding release from solid, non-food nanocomposites has received increasing attention (bars) and an increasing number of these studies have been rigorous experiments (line).