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Metal oxide nanoparticles are increasingly being produced and will inevitably and up in the aquatic environment. In this work, we focus on the metal oxide nanoparticles CuO. These nanoparticles are used in many commercial products (e.g. CuO nanoparticles in catalysts, semiconductors and chemical sensors).We focused on acute and adverse effects of CuCl2 and CuO NPs <50 nm, in particular. The aim of this study was to investigate the acute toxicity of the nanoparticles to Daphnia magna and Tubifex tubifex. Selected representatives are an important part of the fish food chain. The effect of the CuCl2 salt and CuO NPs was tested on the growth D. magna in an acute test scenario according to OECD guidelines 202. Tests with T. tubifex were performed according to method ASTM E1706-04. The concentrations of CuCl2 and CuO NPs tested were as follows: 0.0005, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1 mg·l-1 and 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1 mg·l-1 to D. magna and T. tubifex, respectively. Graphpad Prism was used for data visualization and statistics. Dose-response curves were constructed and EC50/LC50 values were calculated. In particular, changes in the behaviour of test organisms were noted. The impairment of Daphnids movement and holding at the bottom and Tubifex tubifex burrowing behaviour may lead to ecologically detrimental effects, such as an increase in the susceptibility of invertebrate species to predation. This could lead to possibly biomagnifying NPs up to food chain, thereby affecting the entire ecosystem.
Keywords: Nano, metal, aquatic toxicity, Daphnia magna, Tubifex tubifex© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.