{"id":46,"date":"2013-10-13T20:55:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T01:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/?p=46"},"modified":"2022-09-02T13:23:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T18:23:19","slug":"handling-of-nanomaterials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/?p=46","title":{"rendered":"Handling of Nanomaterials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, there currently is not a site or an authority that you can go to and find the proper methods for handling nanomaterials.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the properties of the materials throughout the size ranges to be able to develop a specific directions for handling each different material.\u00a0 The Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs), which contain micrograms of mercury, have an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) procedure for cleaning up the residue of a broken light (http:\/\/www2.epa.gov\/cfl\/cleaning-broken-cfl<\/a>).\u00a0 The procedure starts with having people and pets leave the area.\u00a0 What do we do with nanomaterials?<\/p>\n

Are nanomaterials more dangerous than CFLs? or less dangerous?\u00a0 In the vast majority of cases we don\u2019t know.\u00a0 There has been initial efforts undertaken.\u00a0 OHSA awarded Rice University a contract to develop a short course on nanotechnology safety.\u00a0 This 8 hour course is available on the OSHA web site.\u00a0 In January 2013, NSF awarded Texas State University a contract to develop two courses (Introduction and Advanced) on nanotechnology safety education.\u00a0 The first roll out to students was started in Summer 2013.\u00a0 Modules from the courses are being evaluated during the Fall semester.\u00a0 More will be discussed on this effort in future blogs.<\/p>\n

This takes us back to the question of \u201cHow do we handle nanomaterials?\u201d\u00a0 First, let\u2019s start with different categories of potential dangers.\u00a0 We will cover the handling issues in future blogs.<\/p>\n

The first consideration is Toxicity Issues<\/b>.\u00a0 Are there any known issues regarding the material under investigation\/application?\u00a0 If there are, then existing procedures must be followed.\u00a0 One can not assume that a change in size reduces the toxicity.\u00a0 If Chemical Dangers<\/b> are present, the established precautions must be followed.\u00a0 There are certain materials that have a high probability of Fire<\/b> dangers.\u00a0 Others have concern about Explosion<\/b> possibilities, which also ties into concern about Dust<\/b>.\u00a0 Supposedly benign materials like flour can create an explosive environment if sufficient dust becomes airborne.\u00a0 Dust has additional hazards due to the ability to ingest the dust, which can aggregate in lungs or other parts of the body.\u00a0 Electrostatic<\/b> issues are of a concern due to the fact that particles can cling to the researcher without his\/her being aware and cause contamination outside the controlled environment.<\/p>\n

There are other considerations that impact the approach to handling various materials.\u00a0 The Volume <\/b>of the material is an important consideration as well as its Density<\/b>.\u00a0 The Concentration<\/b> of the material also fits into the considerations for the appropriate means of handling it.\u00a0 There are concerns that the Shape<\/b> of the material will impact its ability to enter the human body.\u00a0 Straight <\/b>shaped materials have the ability to more readily enter into a person\u2019s body than Curved<\/b> material.\u00a0 The fact that carbon nanotubes are needle-shaped, which is similar to asbestos, has raised concerns about the applications of the nanotubes.\u00a0 As a free floating \u201cdust\u201d there could be significant issues.\u00a0 Curved materials have a harder task in getting through some of the body\u2019s defenses and are of somewhat less concern.\u00a0 The last item in today\u2019s list is Size<\/b>.\u00a0 There are some materials that have different shape characteristics depending on whether they are < 8nm, 8 to 20nm, or >20nm.\u00a0 <\/b>One can not assume that the nanomaterials will keep the same structure as the size changes.<\/p>\n

So what does one do?\u00a0 One method, which is reasonable safe, is to treat all materials as potentially dangerous until proven otherwise.\u00a0 In the evaluation of the potential dangers, one must consider all aspects of the material\u2019s known properties and any proven properties of the nanomaterial.\u00a0 We will have more comments on this in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, there currently is not a site or an authority that you can go to and find the proper methods for handling nanomaterials.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the properties [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology-risk-management","category-nanotechnology-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}