All Knowledge & Insights By Date

Environment International recently posted online an article entitled “Comparative evaluation of antimicrobials for textile applications.” The authors provide an overview of the main compounds currently used — triclosan, silane quaternary ammonium compounds, zinc pyrithione, and silver-based compounds, including nanosilver. The authors evaluated scientific publications, market data, and regulatory documents to consider the potential effects of antimicrobials on the environment and on...

Oral arguments were held on January 16, 2013, in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) case challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional registration of HeiQ AGS-20, a nanosilver product. NRDC filed suit on January 26, 2012, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (California). During oral arguments, EPA maintained that NRDC lacks standing to challenge the conditional registration. The judges appeared to reject EPA’s...

On January 18, 2013, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a Federal Register notice seeking comment on the types of hazard identification and risk management research to consider in updating its fiscal years 2013-2016 nanotechnology strategic plan. NIOSH states that it wants to “build on the accomplishments of ongoing research” to “develop strategic research goals and objectives for nanotechnology occupational safety and health research...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is scheduled to publish in the December 19, 2012, Federal Register a request for information and comment on silver nanoparticles. According to the notice, NIOSH has initiated an evaluation of the scientific data on silver nanoparticles “to ascertain the potential health risks to workers and to identify gaps in knowledge so that appropriate laboratory and field research studies can be...

On December 11, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a research collaboration intended to assess potential impacts of nanomaterials on people’s health and the environment.  According to EPA’s press release, the research is part of a “larger international effort” that includes: Identifying, characterizing and quantifying the origins of nanomaterials; Studying biological processes affected by...

The presentations from the August 14-16, 2012, “Safe Nano Design: Molecule » Manufacturing » Market” workshop are now available. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Prevention through Design Program and Nanotechnology Research Center held the workshop, during which participants provided input into the safe commercialization of nano products resulting in the development of guidelines for the safe synthesis of nanoparticles and associated products, using a...

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced on November 12, 2012, the creation of a website intended to serve as a resource for understanding new chemical testing approaches. These approaches are typically less costly and time-consuming than animal-based tests. EDF notes that while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invested resources to create research programs to advance new types of chemical testing and assessment approaches, questions for users...

On November 7, 2012, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC) posted a document entitled Filling the Knowledge Gaps for Safe Nanotechnology in the Workplace: A Progress Report from the NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center, 2004–2011. NIOSH established NTRC in 2004 to address occupational safety and health concerns associated with nanotechnology. The progress report summarizes program accomplishments from the inception of NTRC...

On October 24, 2012, the National Academies released a report entitled Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels, which was produced at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). According to the report, biofuels made from algae could provide a domestic source of renewable fuel, but with current technologies, increasing production of algal biofuels to meet five percent of U.S. transportation fuel needs could “create unsustainable demands for energy, water, and nutrient...

On October 19, 2012, the European Comission (EC) began a public consultation on a preliminary opinion entitled Addressing the New Challenges for Risk Assessment. The Inter-Committee Coordination Group of the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR), Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), and Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) established a joint working group to review risk assessment procedures and new challenges for...

On October 5, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated a final significant new use rule (SNUR) for potassium titanium oxide, which was previously the subject of a consent order under Section 5(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA states that, based on test data on the premanufacture notice (PMN) substance and structure activity relationship analysis of test data on analogous respirable, poorly soluble particulates (subcategory titanium dioxide), EPA...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a September 20, 2012, Federal Register notice seeking comment on a proposed National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) exposure assessment and epidemiological study of U.S. workers exposed to carbon nanotubes (CNT) and carbon nanofibers (CNF). The notice states that the proposed research is a cross-sectional study of the current U.S. workforce involved with CNT and CNF in manufacturing and distribution, to be...

On September 11, 2012, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) posted a brochure entitled “Six Years of OECD Work on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials: Achievements and Future Opportunities.” The brochure notes that “[a]fter six years of work, the OECD and its member countries have come to the conclusion that the approaches for the testing and assessment of traditional chemicals are in general appropriate for assessing the safety of nanomaterials,...

On September 5, 2012, the National Research Council (NRC) released a pre-publication version of a report entitled Science for Environmental Protection:  The Road Ahead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked NRC to assess EPA’s overall capabilities “to develop, obtain, and use the best available scientific and technologic information and tools to meet persistent, emerging, and future mission challenges and opportunities.” The report discusses nanotechnology as an example...

The International Zinc Association (IZA) prepared a response to a recent article entitled “Soybean susceptibility to manufactured nanomaterials with evidence for food quality and soil fertility interruption” and posted on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) website. IZA states that while the article and related reports highlight that nano-zinc oxide improves crop productivity and zinc concentration in plants, they suggest that the concentration...

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) posted on its website on August 20, 2012, an article entitled “Soybean susceptibility to manufactured nanomaterials with evidence for food quality and soil fertility interruption.” According to the authors, no single study to date has examined the full implications of growing plants to full maturity in field soil contaminated by manufactured nanomaterials. The PNAS study does so for soybeans in farm soil amended...

On August 1, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted a final report entitled Nanomaterial Case Study: Nanoscale Silver in Disinfectant Spray, which EPA states “is intended to be used as part of a process to identify what is known and, more importantly, what is not yet known that could be of value in assessing the broad implications of certain nanomaterials.” According to EPA, “[t]he complex properties of various nanomaterials make evaluating them in the...

The July 3, 2012, edition of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) eNews includes a nanotechnology update, which states that the critical question to address is whether nanomaterials pose health or safety risks to workers employed in their manufacture and industrial use. The update includes the following “notable recent findings and areas of research”: A peer-reviewed paper recently published by NIOSH researchers addressing five areas to help...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on July 2, 2012, the availability of an external review draft document entitled Nanomaterial Case Study: A Comparison of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube and Decabromodiphenyl Ether Flame-Retardant Coatings Applied to Upholstery Textiles (EPA/600/R-12/043A). EPA states that the draft document “does not draw conclusions regarding potential environmental risks or hazards of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT); rather, it aims to identify...

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) published an April 13, 2012, document entitled Nanotechnology: A Policy Primer that provides an overview of federal research and development (R&D) in nanotechnology, U.S. competitiveness, environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns, nanomanufacturing, and public understanding of and attitudes toward nanotechnology. CRS states that, since the launch of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2000 through fiscal year...