• nanomaterials
• bovine serum albumin
• interactions
• DSTD
• DLS
• FTIR

The widespread use of nanomaterials in consumer products increases the probability of exposure to humans and the environment.
Interaction of nanoparticles with proteins is the basis of nanoparticle bio-reactivity. This interaction gives rise to the formation of a dynamic nanoparticle-protein corona. The protein corona may influence cellular uptake, inflammation, accumulation, degradation and clearance of the nanoparticles. Furthermore, the nanoparticle surface can induce conformational changes in adsorbed protein molecules which may affect the overall bio-reactivity of the nanoparticle.
This work has been developed in the framework of NANoREG project, which is the first FP7 project to get information on Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) issues of nanomaterials by the scientific evaluation of available data and new test methods.
In order to understand the biological safety of nanoparticles, the interactions of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2-NPs) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) were investigated by applying a multi-technique approach.
In this thesis, a multidimensional Dynamic Surface Tension Detector (DSTD) is presented in a novel Flow Injection Analysis (FIA) application to the characterization of Ag-NPs, TiO2-NPs, BSA and their mixtures. Two other techniques were used to implement DSTD data: Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR).
DSTD has been applied successfully to the study of surface activity of nanofluids and nanofluids/protein mixtures. FTIR spectroscopy has been used to identify the structural changes of proteins induced by the interaction with NPs and DLS has been used to determine the size of particles.