Stakeholder welcome page: Industry
Stakeholder welcome page: Industry page 1961 In NanoFASE work has been carried out to guide industry in their response to future engineered nanomaterial (ENM) regulatory obligations. NanoFASE seeks to advance the understanding of environmental fate: where ENMs end up during their lifecycle and what changes they may have gone through. NanoFASE has focussed on the exposure side of the risk equation, delivering mathematical tools to model the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) of nanomaterials to which organisms in the environment could be exposed. Guidance is provided on fitting NanoFASE complex modelling into an efficient tiered assessment.
Q. Why do we need an Exposure Assessment Framework (EAF) and can it be used in a risk assessment?A. REACH requirements are changing for nanoforms in 2020 and will include evidence-based chemical assessment. The EAF can form part of risk assessment providing the relevant chemical hazard is known. Read more in our short welcome document.
Q. Does the Clickable Framework guide me through the process of assessing environmental exposure for my product and are there other reasons for using it?
A. The Clickable Framework is a rich source of information including the results of four years’ worth of research on industrially relevant material and scenarios which can be used for learning but it is not a quantitative tool. Our industrial partners have found the clickable framework useful to demonstrate their eco credentials to customers.
Q. What is a pathway analysis and how is it performed?
A. A pathway analysis follows the lifecycle of a product identifying opportunities for material to be released into environmental compartments. Examples of pathway analyses are presented for certain products. A report provides detailed data on quantifying release across the value chain.
Q. What are environmental compartments and why are they important?
A. Environmental compartments are for example, air, soil, water, sediments, where released material might arrive. Each can be considered as a "reactor" and material arriving in the reactor may be transformed. Transformations could take place by dissolution, aggregation, oxidation etc. These compartments contain biota which will encounter released or transformed material and may be impacted by it.
Q. How are ENM studied in different environmental compartments?
A. Where possible experiments are performed using material from an industrial process to see what happens to this in a relevant environmental media. Where this is not possible simulated scenarios are studied in a laboratory. Computer models are also used to predict the form and whereabouts of released ENM.
Q. What is the NanoFASE Water-Soil-Organism Model and how is it to be used?
A. The NanoFASE WSO model shows where and how much ENM is in the environment and in what form, with high spatial resolution. Time factors are also incorporated. The NanoFASE model is expected to be used by researchers, with simpler models being used when considering regulatory aspects. A simple workflow for use of different models is provided.
| "As a small company designing, developing and manufacturing new nanoparticle dispersions, we prefer to get a competent expert in for such an important obligation as filling out a REACH dossier. First of all, we have to be sure that we get it right – and secondly, the amount of time needed to address the dossier without the relevant experience would far surpass the time spent by the expert consultant to complete the process." - Dr Selina Ambrose, Promethean Particles (NanoFASE partner and supplier). |
Q. What case studies exist in the Clickable Framework?
A. There are case studies relating to different ENM applications: photocatalysts for improved air quality, antifouling paint for improved efficiency of marine transport, smart textiles with antimicrobial activity and printing inks for electronic applications. Pathway analyses for ENM relating to these case studies (e.g. titanium dioxide, silver, copper and copper oxide) can be found along with a generic pathway analysis. The detailed fate of silver ENM in the environment can be followed in a case study along with how the case studies have been used to road test the models. Case studies focussed on nanomaterials in the living environment are found as well.
Q. How can I locate the methods and results of the NanoFASE experiments?
A. The Clickable Framework Experimental Toolbox is the entry point for much of this information. The extensive data collected and structured by NanoFASE will be rendered FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable, across Europe and beyond in a Knowledge Base. Each page of the Clickable Framework also gives reading suggestions and links to the Library.
NanoFASE Industry Insights
NanoFASE benefitted from the collaboration of a range of industry partners and advisors, who supplied particles for the empirical work, developed advanced techniques and instruments that going forward will serve Europe and other regions, pilot-tested nano-enabled applications in controlled experiments to help refine our models, and/or participated in road-testing the models.
Three short interviews highlight different facets of the NanoFASE experience for some of these valued partners.
Read more
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Visit the Regulator and Academic stakeholder welcome pages. NanoFASE Exposure Assessment for Industry (further explanation of the Clickable Framework) A word from the wise (11.2017) - Interview with Prof. Peter Dobson OBE, former NanoFASE International Advisory Board Chair Link awaited: Model road-testing report: Industry-centred guidance –Visit the searchable NanoFASE Library to find reports and summaries, presentations, and peer-reviewed articles (50 and counting) as they are continuously uploaded. NanoFASE is assembling the project learning into fact sheets and a set of major publications planned for submission in Autumn 2019. This includes an Environmental Science: Nano virtual special collection detailing the empirical methods and conclusions, exposure modelling, and the overall impact on environmental risk assessment. The Stakeholder Welcome page and our Downloads menu will be updated as such publications become available. |
Contacts |
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Alison Crossley WP1 Lead Oxford Materials Characterisation Service Oxford University |
| With thanks to our interviewees: | |
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Selina Ambrose |
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Phil Vincent Malvern Panalytical |
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Barry Park GBP Consulting Visiting Professor, Cranfield University |