A bibliometric analysis of research on the risk of engineering nanomaterials during 1999-2012

A bibliometric analysis based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) from the Web of Science was carried out to provide insights into research activities and tendencies of the global risk of engineering nanomaterials (ENMs) from 1999 to 2012. The number of publications per year has increased steadily since approximately 2006. The USA produced 41.9% of all pertinent articles followed by China with 14.8% and UK with 9.1%. Environmental Science & Technology, Toxicology, and Journal of Nanoparticle Research were the three most common journals in this field. A synthesized analysis by co-citation and words from author keywords provided the clues to discover the current research emphases. The mainstream research related to risk of ENMs was toxicological effects and ecological risk. Toxicity effect strongly promoted the development of related research in the past 14 years. Research on environmental behavior and ecological risk of ENMs is the fast growing field.