Health hazards of methylammonium lead iodide based perovskites: cytotoxicity studies

New technologies launch novel materials; besides their performances in products, their health hazards must be tested. This applies to the lead halide perovskite CH₃NH₃PbI₃ as well, which offers fulgurate applications in photovoltaic devices. We report the effects of CH₃NH₃PbI₃ photovoltaic perovskites in human lung adenocarcinoma epithelial cells (A549), human dopaminergic neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y) and murine primary hippocampal neurons by using multiple assays and electron microscopy studies. In cell culture media the major part of the dissolved CH₃NH₃PbI₃ has a strong cell-type dependent effect. Hippocampal primary neurons and neuroblastoma cells suffer a massive apoptotic cell death, whereas exposure to lung epithelial cells dramatically alters the kinetics of proliferation, metabolic activity and cellular morphology without inducing noticeable cell death. Our findings underscore the critical importance of conducting further studies to investigate the effect of short and long-term exposure to CH₃NH₃PbI₃ on health and environment.