To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will focus on nanomaterials in its 2024 Science blog posts.
NIOSH’s yearlong celebration of the NTRC’s 20-year anniversary will highlight achievements and factors influencing possible future research areas in engineered nanomaterials via its NIOSH Science blog.
“Looking to the future, we expect nanotechnology will continue to evolve and transform many industries,” NIOSH said in its October 2023 eNewsletter. “NTRC will continue identifying possible new hazards and risks to workers. They will focus their research on high priority areas and communicate their results. These results will lay the scientific foundation for policy and standards to protect workers from nanomaterial exposures.”
The NIOSH NTRC was founded in 2004 and “has kept NIOSH at the forefront of research and hazard prevention for nanotechnology safety in the workplace.”
What is nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology is “the manipulation of matter on a near-atomic scale to produce new structures, materials, and devices,” according to NIOSH. These materials could advance many industries, including medicine, energy, transportation and environmental science.
Many clothing, electronics and coatings products manufacturers already use engineered nanomaterials. Materials begin to exhibit unique properties at the nanoscale size that differ from larger forms of the same material.
Those unique properties can affect human biological systems differently, which in turn create novel health and safety challenges.
New engineered nanomaterials are constantly emerging, NIOSH said. That “makes it challenging to keep up with the development of recommended exposure limits” for employers.
NTRC research leads to exposure limits, NIOSH guidance docs
This is where the NTRC comes in. Despite the challenges in keeping up with exposure limits, the center continues to make important contributions in protecting workers who handle engineered nanomaterials.
NTRC scientists were among the first to conduct research to develop occupational exposure limits for certain nanomaterials. This research led to NIOSH’s published guidance documents for worker safety for titanium dioxide, carbon nanotubes and nanofibers, and silver nanomaterials.
The center assesses workplace processes materials and control technologies associated with nanotechnology, including 3D printing. It also provides more than 140 cost-free, on-site exposure assessments at advanced manufacturing facilities.
Researchers with the NTRC established a nationwide registry in 2017. They continue to recruit companies to provide workplace records in facilities where carbon nanofibers are handled to better evaluate worker health over time.
For more information about NTRC’s free on-site assessments, click here. NIOSH guidance publications on nanomaterials worker health and safety can be found here.