Nanosafety: EU Project Develops Guidelines for the Classification of Nanomaterials

Scientists under the leadership of Vicki Stone at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have developed a framework for assessing the safety of nanomaterials. They published their results in the December issue of nanotoday.

The project, named GRACIOUS (Grouping, Read-Across, CharacterIzation, and classificatiOn framework for regUlatory risk assessment of manufactured nanomaterials and Safer design of nanoenabled products), began at the start of 2018 and runs until June 2021. It studies how nanomaterials can be classified into groups and sets the criteria for such groupings. Methodologies and software models should play an important role in the future and simplify classification.

The authors regard such a simplification as urgently needed, given that registrants need clear standards when they want to register nanomaterials. The EU Guidelines have shown themselves to be inadequate for some time.

The background of the study is EU Regulation 2018/1881 of December 3, 2018. It sets obligations for companies that want to market nanomaterials and has been in effect since January 2020.

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