Globally, the Earth system has thousands of terragrams (Tg) (1 Tg = 1012g) of mineral nanoparticles moving around the planet each year. These mineral nanoparticles are ubiquitously distributed throughout the atmosphere, oceans, waters, soils, in and/or on most living organisms, and even within proteins such as ferritin. In natural environments, mineral nanozymes can be produced by two pathways: ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ processes. Specifically, the weathering or human-promoted breakdown of bulk materials can result in nanomaterials directly (a top-down process), or nanomaterials can grow from precursors through crystallization, reaction, or biological roles (a bottom-up process).
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Source: Phys.org