Cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species generation from aggregated carbon and carbonaceous nanoparticulate materials.

We have investigated the cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation for indoor and outdoor soots: candle, wood, diesel, tire, and natural gas burner soots--along with surrogate black carbon, various multiwall carbon nanotube aggregate materials, TiO2 (anatase) and chrysotile asbestos as reference materials. All soots were observed utilizing TEM and FESEM to be composed of aggregated, primary spherules (20-80 nm diameter) forming complex, branched fractal structures. These spherules were composed of intercalated, turbostratic arrangements of curved graphene fragments with varying concentrations ofpolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) isomers.