A keynote address delivered at AIHce in Toronto on June 3, 2009 describing challenges posed by nanomaterials to occupational safety professionals and introducing the GoodNanoGuide wiki.
8. Small Size → Large Surface Area
Each side = 1 meter Each side = ¼ meter Each side = 1 nanometer
¼m
Gold
1 m
Mass ≈ 43,000 lb Mass ≈ 43,000 lb Mass ≈ 43,000 lb
SA = 6 m2 SA = 24 m2 SA ≈ 6 billion m2
≈ 2500 sq miles
≈ 8 ft x 8 ft room State of Delaware:
< 2000 sq miles
14. Addressing Applications & Implications
Research and Education
The Center for Biological & Environmental Nanotechnology
An NSF center of excellence in nanotechnology research & education
cben.rice.edu
Information and Community-Building
The International Council on Nanotechnology
A multi-stakeholder forum for addressing nanotechnology’s potential risks
icon.rice.edu
15. International Council on Nanotechnology
INCLUSIVE GLOBAL
Multistakeholder cooperation International perspective
TECHNICAL PROACTIVE
Grounded in science Stewards for sustainability
Developing and communicating information regarding potential environmental and
health risks of nanotechnology to foster risk reduction and maximize societal benefit.
17. Virtual Journal of NanoEHS
Database of citations to peer-reviewed nanoEHS papers
• Monthly updates
• Over 3100 records
• Backgrounders on key
literature
[out of five]
“This paper makes a major contribution to
the literature …”
http://icon.rice.edu/virtualjournal.cfm
23. Key Questions for People Working with
Nanomaterials
• What are you doing now?
• What do you need to know to do the best
job?
• Where are you going for information?
24. Workers: Survey of Current Handling Practices
First comprehensive, international survey of handling
practices in the nanotech workplace
Key findings
• Nano-specific EHS programs
and training are widely
reported
• Actual practices do not depart
from conventional chemical
safety practices
• Active interest in additional
information
• Main impediment: Lack of
information and guidance
http://tinyurl.com/ICONSurvey
and
Environ. Sci. Technol. 2008, 42, 3155-3162
25. Some Resources for Handling Nano
US Canada Europe
DOE NSRC NIOSH IRSST NanoSafe2 BAUA
E2535-07 ISO/TR 12885 PD 6699-2:2007
26. Common Messages
• Nanomaterial behavior may differ from that
of non-nanoscale analogs
• Some nanomaterials may pose health risks if
exposure is present
• Hazard and exposure data do not yet provide
a clear picture of risk
MINIMIZING EXPOSURE IS PRUDENT
28. How do we get
Timely
Practical
High-quality
information out
to ALL the target populations?
29. Introducing the GoodNanoGuide
• Protected Internet site on occupational practices for the safe handling of nanomaterials
• Multiple stakeholders contribute, share and discuss information
• Modern, interactive, up-to-date
http://GoodNanoGuide.org
30. What is a Wiki?
A Wiki is central, shared repository of online information
Anyone can edit the pages Wikis for Dummies
Editing is easy and requires no special tools
Formatting is simple
Changes are easily tracked
31. Why a Wiki for Nano Handling Practices?
Features Guidance Document Research Paper Wiki Entry
Describes a specific practice No Maybe YES
Written by practitioners Maybe Maybe YES
Written for practitioners Maybe No YES
Engages global community No Maybe YES
Provides a forum for dialog No No YES
Easily accessed YES No YES
32. Wiki Generates Global Interest
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
France
Germany
India
New
Zealand
South
Africa
Switzerland
USA
UK
Admin Co-chairs Planners Testers
Global locations of current participants
33. Interacting with the GoodNanoGuide
No Registration Required
VIEW
Register as a User
COMMENT
Register as a Provider
CONTRIBUTE
34. Implementation Committee
Dr. Michael Riediker Mr. Bruce Stockmeier Dr. Kristen Kulinowski
Institute for Work and Health Argonne National Lab Rice University
Gary Albach Dr. Paul-Émile Boileau Mr. Steve Brown Ms. Ilise Feitshans Dr. Charles Geraci
nanoAlberta IRSST Intel International Labour Organization NIOSH
Dr. Steve Hankin Dr. Mark Hoover Mr. Matthew Jaffe Mr. Victor Jones
SafeNano NIOSH Crowell & Moring NanoTechBC
37. Contribute & Edit using Familiar Tools
Format text Symbols
Hyperlink Insert picture or flash
38. Conclusions
• Nanomaterials pose many complex challenges
to the occupational safety professional
• There are good resources out there already
• New knowledge is evolving rapidly and from
many corners of the globe
Let’s pool our knowledge for the benefit of all
39. Acknowledgments
• ICON “GoodWiki” project planning team
• GoodNanoGuide Implementation Committee
• Survey Respondents
• Kathryn Cavender (Rice Univ)
• NIOSH
• AIHA Nanotechnology Working Group
Covering this topic since 2004Special symposiaWebinars, seminars, workshopsHot topic
What are they?
Diversity of nanomaterial compositionTake the periodic table. If you can make it, you can probably make it at the nanoscaleImpossible to generalize about this vast diversity of substances
In addition to compositional variety, there is structural variety. All these pictures have features at the nanoscale yet are made from the same substance: ZnO
ALL OF CHEMISTRY IS NOT NANOTECHNOLOGYAtoms are governed by quantum physicsColloidal particles and larger are governed by the familiar macroscopic realm of Newtonian mechanicsNano happens in the transitory regime between these two. So new features emerge and things change as size changes
Is it not possible that this leads to special biological and environmental properties as well?
Of course it does and lots of people are exploiting these properties to make advances in medicine and environmental remediation
However, special can be good or bad and we need to understand how to balance benefits and risks
We think about risk broadlyWhat unites all of these is water
Mailing list of over 1000 people in places where we didn’t even know there was much nano going on.But all these dots represent locales where we have had a substantial interaction or held a meeting
One of our key projects is a knowledge base of info relating to EHS of nanomaterialsDon’t let people tell you “we have no information” about nano riskThe problem is not no data, but what are the data telling us?
If we do a simple search of the ICON database for peer-reviewed papers (because we also collect reports, reviews and news items), we find that the pace of knowledge creation is rapidly increasingThis is goodThis means that there is a growing community of people around the world being funded to do work in this area. That’s a far cry from 2001 (founding of CBEN) when there was almost no work in this area.
HOWEVER if we dig a little deeper we’ll find that the vast majority of the papers address hazards with very limited exposure data. (I use “exposure” in the broadest sense to include e.g. papers that model environmental releases of nanomaterials from consumer products, not just human exposure assessments, in which case the numbers would be much lower.)This inequity between hazard and exposure indicates that we do not have enough information to complete a full risk equation and are therefore still operating in a climate of uncertainty with respect to risk assessment and management.
Digging into the hazard data a little we see that research has been published on just about every type of nanoparticle out there. (Some of this data is buried in medical applications papers)And that the preponderance of research has been done in cell culture. Cytotox is of course valuable as a first stage screen for more sophisticated toxicological experiments but its relevance to human health is limited. Highly relevant research is practically non-existent.Still there’s a lot out there already
HOWEVER the quality of the research is spotty and is hampered by lack of standards for research practice in a number of areas including the ones listed here.For example, research has shown that nanoscale carbons can react with the dyes used in some common assays resulting in false positive or false negative results. So we need validation of our traditional techniques.AND quality control issues in nanoparticle samples further complicate the story.ALL of this makes it difficult to establish structure-activity relationships that could help reduce the complexity and provide some prediction of nanomaterial properties.OECD/ISO/ASTM are working on some of these issues but it will take some time to sort out.
The picture gets even bleaker when we look for research of high relevance to occupational practice. While there are a handful of studies that have assessed PPE, for example, the body of work is highly limited. So we have some serious knowledge gaps to overcome