Next-Generation Nanomaterial-Based Technologies for Environmental Exposure Assessment and Public Health Protection

Environmental health faces growing pressure from rapid industrialization, urbanization, and the widespread release of emerging contaminants into air, water, and soil systems. These pollutants, ranging from PFAS and heavy metals to pharmaceuticals and microplastics, represent critical dimensions of the human exposome, contributing to complex, multifactorial health risks that remain difficult to characterize and quantify. Conventional monitoring technologies often struggle with limited sensitivity, delayed response, and insufficient adaptability to complex environmental matrices, hampering our ability to assess true human exposure and understand its downstream consequences on public health. Recent advances in nanomaterial science have opened new pathways for addressing these challenges by enabling highly sensitive detection, real-time monitoring, and efficient treatment of environmental pollutants, ultimately strengthening our capacity to evaluate environmental exposures and their impact on human health. Owing to their unique physicochemical properties, tunable surface functionalities, and high reactivity, advanced nanomaterials provide versatile platforms for developing next-generation sensors, diagnostic tools, and remediation systems that can transform how we monitor, quantify, and respond to human environmental exposures.

Despite significant progress in environmental science and engineering, characterizing human exposure to complex environmental contaminants, and linking those exposures to health outcomes, remains a central challenge in public health research. The increasing complexity, persistence, and low-concentration occurrence of contaminants in natural and engineered systems makes it difficult to generate real-time, high-resolution exposure data or implement sustainable interventions that meaningfully reduce human health burden. This Research Topic aims to address these limitations by advancing nanomaterial-based technologies as tools for exposome characterization, environmental health risk assessment, and the reduction of human exposure to harmful pollutants.
The goal of this Research Topic is to showcase innovative nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled systems that improve pollutant detection, human exposure assessment, biomarker discovery, and environmental health protection, while supporting scalable and environmentally responsible applications. By bringing together interdisciplinary research spanning material design, sensing mechanisms, exposure science, and public health, this Topic seeks to accelerate the translation of laboratory-scale innovations into practical, field-deployable tools for environmental health monitoring. Ultimately, the contributions will help define pathways for implementing advanced nanomaterial-driven technologies that deepen our understanding of environment–health relationships, support the characterization of the exposome across different life stages, safeguard public health, and promote sustainable environmental management.

This Research Topic focuses on advanced nanomaterial-based technologies as enablers of environmental health research, with emphasis on their role in assessing human exposure, characterizing the exposome, and reducing pollution-related health risks across water, air, and soil systems. The scope includes the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of nanomaterials for environmental sensing, diagnostics, and remediation, evaluated through a public health lens. Specific themes of interest include:
• Nanomaterial-enabled sensors and biosensors for human exposure assessment and biomarker detection
• Real-time and in situ monitoring platforms for exposome characterization
• Detection and treatment of emerging contaminants (PFAS, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, microplastics) with direct relevance to human health risk
• Sustainable and green nanotechnology approaches that support public health goals
• Mechanisms of action of environmental contaminants on human health, informed by nanotechnology-based insights
• Evaluation of environmental exposures across different life stages and their contribution to disease risk

Studies addressing mechanism-driven insights, system integration, scalability, field validation, and public health relevance are particularly encouraged.
We welcome original research articles, review papers, mini-reviews, perspectives, and methodological studies that present fundamental advances, applied solutions, or interdisciplinary approaches aligned with environmental health protection, exposome research, and sustainable environmental management.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Sustainable nanotechnology, Emerging contaminants, Exposome, Nanosensors, Human exposure assessment, Environmental health risk assessment, Environmental biomarkers, Real-time environmental monitoring, Nanoremediation, Public health protection.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.