All Knowledge & Insights By Date

On July 29, 2022, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a Technical Report: Occupational Exposure Sampling for Engineered Nanomaterials. Since 2010, NIOSH has developed guidance for workplace sampling for three engineered nanomaterials: carbon nanotubes (CNT) and nanofiber (CNF), silver, and titanium dioxide, each of which has an elemental mass-based NIOSH recommended exposure limit (REL). NIOSH has also developed a practical approach to...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a complaint with the Environmental Appeals Board on March 15, 2022, pursuant to Section 16(a) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). According to the complaint, as the result of an EPA inspection of the Vorbeck Materials facility on June 20, 2019, and its follow-up actions, EPA alleges that Vorbeck has violated TSCA Section 12(b) and the Notice of Export rule requirements at 40 C.F.R. Part 707, Subpart D, thereby...

As reported in our January 4, 2021, blog item, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH®) Threshold Limit Values for Chemical Substances (TLV®-CS) Committee included carbon nanotubes on its 2021 list of chemical substances and other issues under study. Being placed on the under study list indicated that the TLV®-CS Committee had selected carbon nanotubes for development of a threshold limit value (TLV®). ACGIH® has now released its two-tier under...

On June 30, 2020, from 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. (EDT), the European Union (EU) NanoSafety Cluster will hold a webinar on “Immune response from occupational exposure to CNTs and nanofibres.”  The following speakers will discuss work at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on the association of occupational exposure with ex vivo functional immune response in workers handling carbon nanotubes and...

On April 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published Environmental Health Criteria 244:  Principles and methods to assess the risk of immunotoxicity associated with exposure to nanomaterials.  WHO states that the document presents an overview of the current knowledge and evidence on principles and basic mechanisms of immunotoxicity caused by engineered nanomaterials (ENM).  The document provides guidance on principles and methods for hazard and risk assessment of...

On May 4, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published proposed significant new use rules (SNUR) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for chemical substances that were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN) and are subject to orders issued by EPA pursuant to TSCA.  85 Fed. Reg. 26419.  The SNURs require persons who intend to manufacture (defined by statute to include import) or process any of these chemical substances for an activity that is...

On April 7, 2020, the European Union (EU) Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON) published a Nanopinion entitled “Carbon Nanotubes — First nanomaterial of high concern on the SIN List.”  As reported in our November 27, 2019, blog item, ChemSec added carbon nanotubes to the Substitute It Now (SIN) List in November 2019.  According to Dr. Anna Lennquist, Senior Toxicologist, International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), ever since ChemSec created the SIN List, there have been...

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published standard ISO/TS 11308:2020, “Nanotechnologies — Characterization of carbon nanotube samples using thermogravimetric analysis.” The standard provides guidelines for the characterization of carbon nanotube (CNT)-containing samples by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), performed in either an inert or oxidizing environment. The standard offers guidance on the purity assessment of the CNT samples through a quantitative...

On December 5, 2019, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) announced that the NTP Technical Report on the Toxicity Studies of 1020 Long Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Administered by Inhalation to Sprague Dawley (Hsd:Sprague Dawley® SD®) Rats and B6C3F1/N Mice is now available.  In 2003, the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology nominated nanoscale materials as a class of substances for toxicological evaluation.  The recommended...

As reported in our February 1, 2019, blog item, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH®) Threshold Limit Values for Chemical Substances (TLV®-CS) Committee included carbon nanotubes on its 2019 list of chemical substances and other issues under study.  Being placed on the under study list indicated that the TLV®-CS Committee had selected carbon nanotubes for development of a threshold limit value (TLV®).  On July 30, 2019,...

On October 3, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated a final significant new use rule (SNUR) under Section 5(a)(2) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for the chemical substance identified generically as bimodal mixture consisting of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and other classes of carbon nanotubes (CNT), which was the subject of premanufacture notice (PMN) P-11-482.  This action requires persons who intend to manufacture (defined by...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has published a chapter in the fifth edition of the NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods (NMAM) entitled “Analysis of Carbon Nanotubes and Nanofibers on Mixed Cellulose Ester Filters by Transmission Electron Microscopy.”  The draft chapter provides standardized approaches for the analysis of carbon nanoparticles.  The chapter provides detailed guidance on effective means to perform transmission electron microscopic analysis...

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced on May 19, 2017, publication of Volume 111 of the IARC Monographs, Some Nanomaterials and Some Fibres.  The Monograph contains evaluations of the carcinogenic hazard to humans of fluoro-edenite fibrous amphibole, silicon carbide fibers and whiskers, and carbon nanotubes.  As reported in our November 3, 2014, blog item, a summary of the findings was published in The Lancet Oncology in...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently announced the availability of the following publications:...

On May 16, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated, through a direct final rule, significant new use rules (SNUR) for 55 chemical substances that were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN), including functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNT) (generic).  EPA states that it determined that any use of the functionalized CNTs without the use of impervious gloves, where there is potential for dermal exposure; manufacturing the PMN substance for use other than as a thin...

On April 27, 2015, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced publication of “Carbon Nanotube and Nanofiber Exposure Assessments: An Analysis of 14 Site Visits” in Annals of Occupational Hygiene.  The paper is the second report from NIOSH’s Industrywide Study.  According to NIOSH, the findings illustrate which tasks have the highest exposures, trends in exposure, nature and character of materials involved, effectiveness of controls when used,...

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) published on March 12, 2015, the proceedings of a September 15, 2014, meeting on “Realizing the Promise of Carbon Nanotubes: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Pathway to Commercialization,” held at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters.  According to NNI, a number of common themes and potential future research and development priorities emerged: NNI states that the outcomes of the meeting will help...

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...

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”:...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that, in response to public comments, it will provide the public more time to comment on the December 28, 2011, proposed significant new use rules (SNUR) for 17 chemical substances that were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN). Of particular interest, seven of the PMN substances’ reported chemical names include the term “carbon nanotube” (CNT) or “CNT.” EPA states “the comment period is being...