Nanosilver-based materials as feed additives: Evaluation of their transformations along in vitro gastrointestinal digestion in pigs and chickens by using an ICP-MS based analytical platform.

The use of a new nanomaterial in the feed chain requires a risk assessment that involves in vitro gastrointestinal digestions to predict its degradation and oral exposure to nanoparticles. In this study, a nanosilver-based material was incorporated into pig and chicken feed as a growth-promoting additive and subjected to the corresponding in vitro gastrointestinal digestions. An inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) analytical platform was used to obtain information about the silver released in the different digestion phases.

Comparative study of extraction methods of silver species from faeces of animals fed with silver-based nanomaterials.

Extractions methods based on ultrapure water, tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH), and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (TSPP) were applied to faeces collected from two in vivo experiments of pigs and chickens fed with a silver-based nanomaterial to study the fate and speciation of silver. For TMAH extraction, cysteine and CaCl were used to evaluate their stabilization effect on the silver forms. The analytical techniques single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS), hydrodynamic chromatography hyphenated to ICP-MS (HDC-ICP-MS) and asymmetric flow field flow fractionation coupled to ICP-MS (AF4-ICP-MS) were applied to the simultaneous detection of particulate and dissolved silver.

How to trust size distributions obtained by single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry analysis.

Single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS) is a technique widely used to obtain direct information about the number concentration and the size distribution of nanoparticles in liquid suspensions. However, its methods still lack clear quality control strategies to confirm the validity of the information derived from them. Only the detection of the complete size distribution of the nanoparticles in a sample over the size critical value ensures obtaining unbiased quantitative information, otherwise information should be restricted to report the presence of nanoparticles over a certain size and number concentration since their actual total number concentration is underestimated and the size overestimated.

Analytical applications of single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry: a comprehensive and critical review.

Single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS) refers to the use of ICP-MS as a particle counting technique. When ICP-MS measurements are performed at very high data acquisition frequencies, information about (nano)particles containing specific elements and their dissolved forms can be obtained (element mass per particle, size and number and mass concentrations). As a result of its outstanding performance, SP-ICP-MS has become a relevant technique for the analysis of complex samples containing inorganic nanoparticles.