Behavior and toxicity of Buckminsterfullerene (C(60)) in aquatic environments: A 30-year review.

Buckminsterfullerene (C60) in aquatic environments undergoes dispersion, aggregation, sedimentation, transformation, and co-pollutant interactions that shape its mobility, bioavailability, and toxicity.

• Why it matters: Ecological risks may be underestimated, especially under sediment-associated, food-web, and multi-pollutant exposure scenarios, leaving uncertainty about real-world impacts.
• What they did: Over 30 years of evidence, the review synthesizes how C60 processes and toxicity mechanisms—solvent-related effects, reactive oxygen species generation, physical contact, and carrier effects—vary across aquatic organisms.
• The result: The review concludes that current ecological risk assessments likely miss key pathways and highlights gaps in sediment-associated fate, organism diversity, environmental realism, and maintaining C60 purity during preparation.

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