A fuller understanding of the interaction between plants and engineered nanomaterials is of topical relevance because the latter are beginning to find applications in agriculture and the food industry. There is a growing need to establish objective safety criteria for their use. The recognition of two independent Arabidopsis thaliana mutants displaying a greater level of tolerance than the wild type plant to exposure to cadmium sulfide quantum dots (CdS QDs) has offered the opportunity to characterize the tolerance response at the physiological, transcriptomic and proteomic levels. Here, a proteomics-based comparison confirmed the conclusions drawn from an earlier transcriptomic analysis that the two mutants responded to CdS QD exposure differently both to the wild type and to each other. Just over half of the proteomic changes mirrored documented changes at the level of gene transcription, but a substantial number of transcript/gene product pairs were altered in the opposite direction. An interpretation of the discrepancies is given, along with some considerations regarding the use and significance of -omics when monitoring the potential toxicity of ENMs for health and environment.

Biochars result from the pyrolysis of biomass waste of plant and animal origin. The interest in these materials stems from their potential for improving soil quality due to increased microporosity, carbon pool, water retention, and their active capacity for metal adsorption from soil and irrigation water. Applications in agriculture have been studied under different conditions, but the overall results are still unclear. Char structure, which varies widely according to the pyrolysis process and the nature of feedstock, is thought to be a major factor in the interaction of chars with soil and their metal ion adsorption/chelation properties. Furthermore, biochar nutrients and their elemental content can modify soil fertility. Therefore, the use of biochars in agricultural settings should be examined carefully by conducting experimental trials. Three key problems encountered in the use of biochar involve (i) optimizing pyrolysis for biomass conversion into energy and biochar, (ii) physicochemically characterizing biochar, and (iii) identifying the best possible conditions for biochar use in soil improvement. To investigate these issues, two types of wood pellets, plus digestate and poultry litter, were separately converted into biochar using different technologies: pyrolysis/pyrogasification or catalytic (thermo)reforming. The following physicochemical features for the different biochar batches were measured: pH, conductivity, bulk density, humidity and ash content, particle size, total organic substances, and trace element concentrations. Fine porous structure analysis and total elemental analysis were performed using environmental scanning electron microscopy along with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). Phytotoxicity tests were performed for each biochar. Finally, we were able to (i) differentiate the biochars according to their physicochemical properties, microstructure, elemental contents, and original raw biomass; (ii) correlate the whole biochar features with their respective optimal concentrations when used as plant fertilizers or soil improvers; and (iii) show that biochars from animal origin were phytotoxic at lower concentrations than those from plant feedstock.