On July 16, 2015, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced the following appeals in which the keywords include nanoforms: J.M. Huber Finland Oy, Case A-011-2015; RHODIA OPERATIONS SAS, Case A-010-2015; IQESIL SA, Case A-009-2015; and Evonik Degussa GmbH, Case A-008-2015. The cases all concern silicic acid, aluminum sodium salt. The contested decisions were adopted December 17, 2014, following a compliance check under the dossier evaluation procedure of the submitted registration. In each...
July 27, 2015
Canada Begins Mandatory Survey with Respect to Certain Nanomaterials in Canadian Commerce
The July 25, 2015, Canada Gazette includes a notice announcing that the Minister of the Environment requires, for the purpose of assessing whether the substances described in the notice are toxic or are capable of becoming toxic, or for the purpose of assessing whether to control, or the manner in which to control the listed substances, any person described in the notice who possesses or who may reasonably be expected to have access to the information required to provide that...
The European Commission (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) announced on July 10, 2015, the publication of its third report in its review of the EC recommendation on the definition of a nanomaterial. The report is the last in a series of three, and provides scientific support to the EC in its review of the definition used to identify materials for which special provisions might apply (e.g., for ingredient labeling or safety assessment). According to JRC, as the definition...
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has issued the following publications in its Series on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials: No. 55 — Harmonized Tiered Approach to Measure and Assess the Potential Exposure to Airborne Emissions of Engineered Nano-Objects and their Agglomerates and Aggregates at Workplaces: The primary goal of this publication is to describe a reliable formal methodology for conducting consistent exposure related...
On July 7, 2015, the American Chemical Society (ACS) will hold a webinar to address the White House’s recently announced Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade. The webinar will feature ACS Nano Editor-in-Chief Paul Weiss and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Lloyd Whitman. The webinar is free, and registration is open to the general public.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has extended the comment period on its April 6, 2015, proposed rule concerning reporting and recordkeeping requirements for certain chemical substances when they are manufactured or processed at the nanoscale. Comments will now be due August 5, 2015. EPA will publish a Federal Register notice announcing the extension during the week of June 29, 2015. EPA proposes to require persons that manufacture or process these chemical substances to...
June 22, 2015
SUN Opens Survey on Risk Management of Nanotechnology
On May 26, 2015, Sustainable Nanotechnologies (SUN) began a survey on risk management of nanotechnology. A key objective of SUN is to build the SUN Decision Support System to facilitate safe and sustainable nanomanufacturing and risk management. It will integrate tools for ecological and human health risk assessment, lifecycle assessment, economic assessment, and social impact assessment within a sustainability assessment framework. SUN seeks responses from personnel of companies involved in...
June 19, 2015
NanoRem Announces Initial Ecotoxicity Results
Taking Nanotechnological Remediation Processes from Lab Scale to End User Applications for the Restoration of a Clean Environment (NanoRem) is a research project funded through the European Commission (EC) FP7. On May 6, 2015, NanoRem issued a press release announcing that no significant toxicological effects were found on soil or water organisms when ecotoxicological tests were undertaken for a range of nanoparticles that could be used for remediation projects: NanoFer 25S, made from...
June 18, 2015
White House OSTP Calls for “Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade”
On June 17, 2015, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published a request for information (RFI) seeking suggestions for “Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade.” The Federal Register notice states: “A Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenge should be an ambitious but achievable goal that harnesses nanoscience, nanotechnology, and innovation to solve important national or global problems and has the potential to capture the public’s...
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) issued a June 9, 2015, press release reminding registrants to consider the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) dissemination of hazard information on the following nanomaterials, and to update their dossiers accordingly: Cerium oxide; Dendrimers; Fullerenes (C60); Gold nanoparticles; Multi-walled carbon nanotubes; Nanoclays; Silicon dioxide; Silver nanoparticles; Single-walled carbon nanotubes; Titanium dioxide...