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Experts Urge Further Pollution Study For Nanomaterials

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 14:34 CST

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has concluded that urgent regulatory action is needed on nano-scale materials widely used in industry.

The commission said the materials have so far shown no evidence of harm to people or the environment, yet there was a "major gap" in research about the risks posed by the materials, which are found in some 600 products globally.

The commission chair also said he would not recommend clothes with nanosilver.

"We are concerned about nanosilver in clothing getting into the environment because it could be potentially very damaging," said Professor John Lawton.

The report focuses on the nano-sized materials that are making it into industry and consumer products and not on the tiny machines or electronic devices that nanotechnology has promised.

The study debates the fact that at such tiny scales, materials behave differently than they do when they comprise larger objects.

For example, Lawton cited fibers made from carbon nanotubes. "Carbon nanofibers are fundamentally different from graphite. That makes their behavior in the environment and in the body very hard to predict."

However, the view of nanomaterials as a single category defined only by their size is limiting because different nanomaterials present markedly different potential risks, the report said.

"It is not the particle size or mode of production of a material that should concern us, but its functionality," it said.

Independent groups in the past have called for stringent industry controls and further research into the environmental risks of nanomaterials.

But the potential benefits of nanomaterials meant that the rise in their use had far outstripped the knowledge of the risks they might pose, the commission noted.

More than 600 consumer products that listed nanomaterials among their ingredients, and the number of patents for nanomaterials' use was in the thousands annually, according to a recent survey for the Washington DC-based Woodrow Wilson Center.

But the materials' novelty meant that long-term effects could not yet be studied, and their limited use to date precluded studies on their build-up in the environment.

Although no evidence of harm to people or the environment has been reported to date, tests must be standardized in order to ensure future monitoring was effective, the commission's study said.

The commission also argued that it saw no reason to implement a blanket ban or moratorium on the development and implementation of nanomaterials, because of the societal benefits they represented, for example, to medicine and the renewable energy industry.

It instead urged co-operative, international action to establish tests for their dangers and regulatory oversight as well as changing the industrial reporting of the use of nanomaterials from voluntary to mandatory, with an industry "checklist" to flag up the products that posed the highest potential risk.

Independent experts consulted for the study suggested that it may be as much as two decades before the toxicological and environmental data catch up to the innovation in nanomaterials.

Andrew Maynard, chief adviser to the emerging nanotechnologies project at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said the report's bottom line was clear; the safe use of novel materials requires innovative solutions to minimizing risks.

"But despite repeated warnings, the establishment continues to lag behind emerging technologies.

"By focusing on how these materials behave, rather than what they look like, the commission have risen above circular discussions on size-related definitions, and brought the dialogue back to how certain materials might cause harm - and how this can be avoided," Maynard added.

The commission named several prevalent nanomaterials that they believe to be of particular concern, including carbon nanofibers, whose constituent nanotubes has in preliminary laboratory experiments shown similar dangers to those of asbestos.

Nanoparticulate silver, which has made its name recently as a highly effective bacteria killer, was listed as another concern. It has been incorporated into fabrics to prevent the bacterial build-up that causes odors.

But nanosilver's bacteria-killing properties are worn away during washing, and could possibly wreak havoc on delicate ecosystems or municipal waste water systems that depend on bacteria.

"I wouldn't recommend nanosilver clothes and I wouldn't wear them myself,” Lawton said.

"At the moment the concentrations are way below anything likely to do damage, but if it became common, it could lead to problems."

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Image Caption: Nanotubes being grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Courtesy Wikipedia

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On the Net:

• Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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