Single entity collision for inorganic water pollutants measurements: Insights and prospects

Abstract

In the context of aquatic environmental issues, dynamic analysis of nano-sized inorganic water pollutants has been one of the key topics concerning their seriously amplified threat to natural ecosystems and life health. Its ultimate challenge is to reach a single-entity level of identification especially towards substantial amount of inorganic pollutants formed as natural or manufactured nanoparticles (NPs), which enter the water environments along with the potential release of constituents or other contaminating species that may have coprecipitated or adsorbed on the particles’ surface. Here, we introduced a ‘nano-impacts’ approach—single entity collision electrochemistry (SECE) promising for in-situ characterization and quantification of nano-sized inorganic pollutants at single-entity level based on confinement-controlled electrochemistry. In comparison with ensemble analytical tools, advantages and features of SECE point at understanding ‘individual’ specific fate and effect under its free-motion condition, contributing to obtain more precise information for ‘ensemble’ nano-sized pollutants on assessing their mixture exposure and toxicity in the environment. This review gives a unique insight about the single-entity collision measurements of various inorganic water pollutants based on recent trends and directions of state-of-the-art single entity electrochemistry, the prospects for exploring nano-impacts in the field of inorganic water pollutants measurements were also put forward.