European and international standardisation progress in the field of engineered nanoparticles

Abstract

CEN-STAR supports researchers to be experts in standardization committees in new challenging issues: Standardization needs to reach consensus from new knowledge. In Europe, pre-normative and co-normative research can be supported financially by the FP7 for research. The area of nanoscience and nanotechnology is developing new standards in Europe within the CEN/TC 352, at the international level at the ISO/TC 229. Particular works are about measurement methods and tests for toxicity at the nanoscale. Some activities are done within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in some other parts of the world, such as the Asian Nano-Forum and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States. Main items for standardization include: definition terminology; metrology instrumentation, reference methods, and materials; measurement methods for applications (physical, chemical, material, electronics); and measurement methods for interface in health, environment, and safety. For toxicity at the nanoscale, particular issues have to be resolved, such as: reproducibility of experiments; reference protocols and use of quality management standards for research (ISO 9001); and intercomparability of results following “round robin” tests. The little information about standardization in nanotechnology in Europe includes the Code of Conduct for Responsible Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies Research and the European Commission mandate to CEN/TC 352, as well as the European Union (EU) projects NanoStrand, NanoInteract, NanoImpactNet, and others.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to all members of CEN-STAR, CEN/TC 352, and researchers and standardizers involved in the NanoScience and NanoTechnology efforts on standardization at the Nanoscale.

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

¹Twenty-seven EU countries, Norway, Switzerland, and associated countries Albania, Croatia, FYROM, Turkey.

²See References: documents from CEN on the web site http://www.cen.eu.

³See BSI The British Standards Institution and References: documents from web site http://www.bsigroup.com/nano.

⁴NanoStrand web site http://www.nanostrand.net.

⁵NanoImpactNet web site http://nanoimpactnet.eu.

⁶Information on 106 projects; 14 of them are from the EU research programmes that give around 32 million euros in grants. The other 92 projects are from the EU Member States, which spend around 47 million euros in grants; total 79 million euros. This information is available at ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/nanotechnology/docs/final-version.pdf (courtesy of Pilar Aguar, DG research).