Université de Fribourg

A hydrofluoric acid-free method to dissolve and quantify silica nanoparticles in aqueous and solid matrices

Bossert, David ; Urban, Dominic A. ; Maceroni, Mattia ; Ackermann-Hirschi, Liliane ; Haeni, Laetitia ; Yajan, Phattadon ; Spuch-Calvar, Miguel ; Rothen-Rutishauser, Barbara ; Rodriguez-Lorenzo, Laura ; Petri-Fink, Alke ; Schwab, Fabienne

In: Scientific Reports, 2019, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 7938

As the commercial use of synthetic amorphous silica nanomaterials (SiO2-NPs) increases, their effects on the environment and human health have still not been explored in detail. An often-insurmountable obstacle for SiO2-NP fate and hazard research is the challenging analytics of solid particulate silica species, which involves toxic and corrosive hydrofluoric acid (HF). We therefore developed...

Université de Fribourg

Silica nanoparticles enhance disease resistance in Arabidopsis plants

El-Shetehy, Mohamed ; Moradi, Aboubakr ; Maceroni, Mattia ; Reinhardt, Didier ; Petri-Fink, Alke ; Rothen-Rutishauser, Barbara ; Mauch, Felix ; Schwab, Fabienne

In: Nature Nanotechnology, 2020, p. 1–10

In plants, pathogen attack can induce an immune response known as systemic acquired resistance that protects against a broad spectrum of pathogens. In the search for safer agrochemicals, silica nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs; food additive E551) have recently been proposed as a new tool. However, initial results are controversial, and the molecular mechanisms of SiO2 NP-induced disease resistance...