October 2010

An October 25, 2010, joint press release from Europe’s two largest consumers umbrella groups, BEUC and ANEC, is entitled “ANEC/BEUC inventory exposes a game of roulette.”

"Nano whitening"

"Using the newest Nanotechnological ingredients"

"Uses the Nano Silver technology which protects the baby's skin"

Consumer products containing a number of nanomaterials are already widely available on the European market and these are just some of the come-ons used in stores or online.

In 2009 the European Consumers' Organization (BEUC) and its sister organization, ANEC, started to monitor the availability of consumer products containing nanomaterials. The initial 2009 inventory listed 151 products, while in 2010 the number rose to 475. The BEUC inventory has product categories representing those most often consumed in everyday life such as child products, food & drink, cosmetics, products for cars and electronic devices.

The inventory and explanatory leaflet can be found on the BEUC website.

The accelerating trend of nanomaterial government regulation continues, this time in Australia.   These are significant because Australia is the world's 13th largest economy and a major export destination for the products of United States manufacturing companies.  

The new regulatory processes, enacted under the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), will take effect on January 1, 2011, and will apply to any new material/chemical that falls under the following working definition of an "industrial nanomaterial":

...industrial materials intentionally produced, manufactured or engineered to have unique properties or specific composition at the nanoscale, that is a size range typically between 1 nm and 100 nm, and is either a nano-object (i.e. that is confined in one, two, or three dimensions at the nanoscale) or is nanostructured (i.e. having an internal or surface structure at the nanoscale)"

This is the second in a two-part blog article that discusses nanotechnologies in the vehicle manufacturing business. In Part 1 I identified many of the current and near-future applications of nanomaterials in vehicle manufacturing and the big rewards that can be expected in performance, cost, and safety.  

In this post I outline the environmental, health, and safety risks that loom large as nanotechnologies are rolled out in the vehicle segment.

Nanotechnology is transforming product design and innovation among manufacturers of electronics goods, textiles, cosmetics and foodstuffs as well as in other fields of materials science.  However, for insurers, uncertainty still surrounds the increasing use of nanotechnology in products and how safe they are.

  An October 6, 2010, article by Lloyd's of London, one of the world's largest insurance markets, discusses the concerns.  

  An article in the October 7 on-line edition of Insurance Journal also discusses the Lloyd’s article.

Excerpts from the Lloyd's on-line article, “Regulators get to grips with nanotechnology,” are reproduced below. 

Nanotechnology is already quietly being used in vehicle manufacturing but engineered nanomaterials are about to hit the automobile world full-force, and with dramatic impact. They allow plastics, textiles, alloys and coatings to have new and highly advantageous and marketable properties. They allow for improvements in electronics that were unthinkable just 10 years ago.  And the results could be both good and bad.

This two-part blog article discusses both the tremendous opportunities and the potentially huge risks that are coming with the integration of numerous nanomaterials into the automotive sector.   First, the big rewards. 

Current Automotive Nanotechnology Applications 

This short video describes just a few of the many current and near-future uses of nanoparticles in vehicle manufacturing.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2l-pr--qCU

The list of specific automotive nanotechnology applications includes at least the following: 

One of the most exciting new developments in pesticides is the prospect of nanopesticides. Nanotechnology is being used to develop pesticides with new or enhanced activity, or more targeted application (such as through microencapsulation or affinity for specific target pests).

Pesticides are regulated under several laws, primarily the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) which authorizes EPA to oversee the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides. The Act applies to all types of pesticides, including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and antimicrobials. The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has already formed a Nanotechnology Work Group to develop a regulatory framework for nanopesticides. Two recent OPP presentations are instructive.

“Nanotechnology and Pesticides” presentation was made in April 2010, at the EPA Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC) meeting.  The April 2010 OPP presentation included the following:

“Why is OPP Concerned?

Potential Human Health Concerns:
- Dermal absorption (so small they may pass through cell membranes)
- Inhalation (go to the deep lung and may translocateto the brain i.e, could cross the blood brain barrier)

Potential Environmental Concerns:
- High durability or reactivity of some nanomaterials raises issues on the fate in environment
- Lack of information to assess environmental exposure to engineered nanomaterials.”

For a good summary of the nanotechnology pesticide issues discussed at the PPDC meeting, see http://nanotech.lawbc.com/2010/05/articles/united-states/federal/ppdc-discusses-nanotechnology-and-pesticides/

“EPA Regulation of Pesticides Containing Nanoscale Materials” presentation was made in September 2010, at the meeting of the State Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Research and Evaluation Group (SFIREG) Pesticide Operations and Management (POM) Committee.  The September 2010 OPP presentation included an indication that EPA intends to require that nanoproducts be labeled in some fashion under FIFRA.

The EPA is of course not the only organization working on this issue. In a study published on October 4, 2010, in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, scientists from Oregon State University and the European Union outline six regulatory and educational issues that should be considered whenever nanoparticles are going to be used in pesticides.

ASTM International Committee E56 on Nanotechnology has created a new subcommittee, E56.06 Nano-Enabled Consumer Products.

The scope of E56.06 is to develop scientifically credible standards for identification, evaluation and assessment of engineered nanomaterials in consumer products.

Members of E56.06 will develop standards for determining the presence of engineered nanomaterials in consumer products and understanding the potential for exposure from the use of ENM in consumer products.

Early focus on nanosilver:  Initial subcommittee projects under consideration include several focused on the increasingly widespread use of nanosilver (as an antimicrobial) in a wide array of consumer products: