Nanomaterials as a potential environmental pollutant: Overview of existing risk assessment methodologies

ABSTRACT

The development and use of engineered nanomaterials is increasing rapidly and there are already a large number of consumer products containing nanomaterials. The possible release of nanomaterials from these products is still uncertain, as is their final fate and effects in the environment. Regulators need to deal with this lack of data when carrying out risk assessment and modify the existing risk assessment approaches to adapt them to the unique features of nanomaterials. Here we give an overview of various risk assessment approaches for nanomaterials developed worldwide, in which we describe their strengths and limitations, and have evaluated two of them, the Nano Risk Framework and the Precautionary Matrix for specific cases. Many properties of engineered nanomaterials are unknown and this causes deficiencies in the approaches studied. It is therefore essential to increase the present scarce data on nanomaterials released in the environment and close the gaps in the current methodologies to perform adequate risk assessment for nanomaterials.

KEYWORDS:

• nanomaterials
• risk assessment
• environmental pollutants

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 263147.