Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-021-05326-6 Evaluation of the Carbon Nanostructures Toxicity as a Function of Their Dimensionality Using Model Organisms: a Review Paulo Castro Cardoso da Rosa · Mayara Bitencourt Leão · Cristiane Lenz Dalla Corte · Carolina Ferreira de Matos  Received: 14 March 2021 / Accepted: 21 August 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 that three-dimensional graphene species tend to have less toxicity than materials with a smaller number of dimensions. Finally, it was possible to note the importance of using several experimental models, especially alternative models, in order to increase the understanding of toxicity mechanisms of carbon nanomaterials. Keywords Fullerenes · Carbon nanotubes · Graphene · Drosophila melanogaster · Danio rerio · Caenorhabditis elegans 1 Introduction Nanotechnology can be understood as creating and using chemical, physical, and biological systems with structural characteristics between individual atoms and molecules in nanometric dimensions. The nano- structures can also be assimilated to form macrostruc- tures to use the resulting materials in various techno- logical applications (Nasrollahzadeh et al., 2019). In 2016, the global nanotechnology market was approximately $ 39 million. In 2021, this market is expected to reach 90.5 billion and 125 billion by 2024. Nanotechnology can be applied in basically all areas from energy, medicine, agriculture, environ- ment, goods and services, manufacturing, personal care, health, electronics, textiles, chemicals, mate- rials, communication, transportation, defense, and entertainment (Zarbin, 2019). However, even with Abstract Nanotechnology has been widely used, with nanomaterials being applied in several tech- nologies. However, little is known about the real toxicological risk that can be caused by nanomateri- als. These materials can be divided according to their dimensionalities. The current classifcation schemes for nanostructured materials are based on these dimensionalities, generally as zero (0D), one (1D), two (2D), and three dimensions (3D). Toxicologi- cal studies to present broad and consistent informa- tion on nanomaterials toxicity mechanisms, in vitro and in vivo studies in several experimental models are necessary. Thus, this short review presents the toxicological potential of carbon nanomaterials, divided by their dimensionality, in the main in vitro and in vivo experimental models, especially alterna- tive models. As a result, it was possible to observe that the toxicity of carbon nanomaterials does not vary according to the dimensionality of 0D, 1D, and 2D materials. For these materials, it is not possible to infer a direct relationship between dimensional- ity and toxicity. However, recent studies have shown P. C. C. da Rosa · M. B. Leão · C. F. de Matos (*)  Universidade Federal Do Pampa, Campus Caçapava Do Sul, Caçapava Do Sul, RS zip code 96570-000, Brazil e-mail: carolinamatos@unipampa.edu.br C. L. Dalla Corte  Centro de Ciências Naturais e Exatas, Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, zip code 97105-900 Santa Maria, RS, Brazil / Published online: 29 August 2021 Water Air Soil Pollut (2021) 232: 367