Extending the potential of ICP-MS as analytical tool for evaluating the safety of food nanomaterials

and contact materials. Assessing the potential risk of iENMs requires methods of analysis that can be successfully employed in experimental studies addressing their interaction with biological systems. Characteristics of iENMs that affect their behaviour and toxicity include size, shape, surface properties, aggregation state, solubility, mass concentration and elemental composition. Among the analytical tools used to determine relevant properties in nanotoxicological studies, ICP‐MS plays a major role. It can be used as a detector of unparalleled sensitivity for the measurement of the mass concentration of iENMs in biodistribution studies, whereas hyphenated ICP‐MS based techniques have a tremendous potential as characterisation tools. So far, ICP‐MS has been used primarily for the detection and characterisation of iENMs based on such elements as selenium and noble metals. Application to oxide nanomaterials, such as SiO2, has been hampered by analytical challenges, i.e., high background and substantial spectral interferences.