Rice University scientists have found that buckyballs dissolve in water and could have a negative impact on soil bacteria. The findings raise new questions about how the nanoparticles might behave in the environment and how they should be regulated.

The found that buckyballs combine into unusual nano-sized clumps — which they refer to as “nano-C60” — that are about 10 orders of magnitude more soluble in water than the individual carbon molecules.

n this new experiment, they exposed nano-C60 to two types of common soil bacteria and found that the particles inhibited both the growth and respiration of the bacteria at very low concentrations — as little as 0.5 parts per million.

American Chemical Society news release