Quantifying environmental and personal risks of nanotechnology for industry

Area of Science:

• Nanomaterial Safety
• Risk Assessment Methodologies
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Regulatory efforts for a universal nanomaterial injury risk assessment methodology have been ongoing for a decade.
• Many prototype risk metrics developed lack informativeness, leading to reliance on non-validated control banding guidance.
• Existing guidance often lacks logical coherence and fails to incorporate risk context, such as risk appetite.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the limitations of current nanomaterial risk assessment methods.
• To propose a novel, generalizable risk evaluation scheme for the industry.
• To establish a framework motivating industry to achieve below-threshold safety ratings.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of existing risk assessment methodologies for nanomaterials.
• Evaluation of the informativeness and applicability of current risk metrics.
• Identification of generalizable risk metrics suitable for a threshold-based approach.

Main Results:

• Current risk metrics for nanomaterials are largely uninformative.
• Control banding offers practical but logically deficient guidance lacking risk context.
• A clear need exists for an industry- and insurer- agreed risk evaluation scheme.

Conclusions:

• A threshold-for-concern approach is necessary for effective nanomaterial risk management.
• This scheme should motivate industry to adopt choices resulting in below-threshold risk ratings.
• Generalizable risk metrics are available to support this proposed evaluation scheme.