Timing, hosts and locations of (grouped) events of NanoImpactNet

4 Description of the work performed since
the beginning of the project and the main
results achieved
While work has begun on all nine of the main NanoFATE S&T
objectives (see above), obviously some are targeted for early
delivery (i.e. Obj. 1 and 2) while full delivery for the others will
not come till the end of the project. For more details than the
summary below and for access to completed public deliverables,
updates and subscription to newsletters, please use the website
www.nanofate.eu .
The working objectives addressed in the first 18 months of
NanoFATE to ensure timely progress towards the overall
objectives can be summarised as follows:
I. Source, produce and fully characterise the
commercial ENPs and match the tagged version of
ZnO as closely as possible. (Delivering Main Obj. 1)
II. Establish particle behaviour in the pure ecotox
media to be used and at higher than
environmental concentrations (to enable hazard
assessment studies). (Working towards Main Obj.
3, 4 & 5)
III. Establish acute and chronic toxicity (to enable
selection of relevant doses for the progression
into the work in environmentally relevant media
conditions. (Working towards Main Obj. 5, 6, 7 &
8)
IV. Develop initial simple assumption based fate
models and estimate worst case environmental
concentrations (Working towards Main Obj. 2 & 8)
V. Train all staff cross discipline, and disseminate our
early findings and planned directions to other EU
projects and stakeholders (Main Obj. 9)
WP 1. Characterisation and tracking of ENPs during processes
involved in fate and toxicity.
In the first 18 months the major deliverables here related to
provision of high quality well characterised particles for the
remaining project partners. A larger than planned range of
commercial ENPs were characterised and assessed so that
supply was consistent and without significant batch to batch
variation issues. Consequently the final set of NanoFATE
commercial particles are:
• The main ZnO particles are 30nm Nanosun from
micronisers in Australia, with matching tagged ZnO
ENP by IHPP, with some work on BASF z-cote and zcote
HP1 ZnO
• Amepox 3-8nm Ag ENP and a 50nm Ag NP from
NanoTrade
• CeO 2 will be the Envirox or Antaria fuel additive and
most likely a polishing agent from Umicore.
WP 2. ENP environmental behaviour and fate modelling
Have identified and prioritised specific properties that need
principal consideration during the development, adaptation and
validation of environmental fate models for nanoparticles (D2.1).
They have, based on this, developed the initial basic fate models
NanoSafetyCluster - Compendium 2012
(with WP6) and supplied the initial worst case environmental
concentration estimates serving to inform decision making and
exposure design in WP 3 & 4 (M 2.1 and D 2.2).
WP 3 ENP Ecotoxicology
Developed improved standard ecotox exposure protocols,
principally adjusting properties of test media, media renewal
frequencies and soil and food spiking methodologies, to ensure
relevant and homogenous presentation of nanoparticles during
toxicity testing. Employing these improved protocols most of
the exposures needed for the hazard assessment has been
completed (except for CeO 2). This information has allowed
progress into the chronic testing phase and also some work to
deliver the data for WP4 on bioavailability drivers.
WP 4 ENP bioavailability - relations between soil and water
chemistry and particle properties
Collected and databased all available information from
literature, conferences and other projects and conducted a
critical review of this available data and its quality. This
identified which environmental factors have the greatest
proven effect on the bioavailability and toxicity of nanoparticles
to organisms living in soil and water. Based on this initial
bioavailability trials testing for pH, organic matter and cation
effects have been designed and run within WP3, plus additional
long-term (12 months) exposures addressing ageing have been
set up.
WP 5 ENP toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics
The WP5 workshop session in Portugal (Jan 2011) developed a
practical and workable sample handling and preservation
system to enable the success of NanoFATE tissue banking. A
well thought through tired approach to the tracking of ENPs in
tissues was also developed, allowing us to make the most of our
technical abilities (and tissue samples) by ensuring that the highend
expensive low throughput techniques only to be applied to
samples where we have good evidence ENPs are present.
Samples have been run looking at biological markers of ENP and
dissolved metal effects to develop the knowledge of signatures
of possible ENP tissue damage. An agreed data structure has
been developed for this systematic data to allow later cross
species comparison, and the format has been kept flexible to
enable adaptation to the Cluster database when agreed. A few
samples have been run on the UK synchrotron at Diamond Light
Source to provide a highly characterised test bed for
development of other more accessible techniques.
WP 6 Integrated risk assessment
The initial milestone for WP 6 was to assess ENP production and
product incorporation estimation engaging industry directly
through a survey. With over 560 companies and associations
involved in ENP production being contacted this represented an
important attempt to gain intelligence on market size and
growth for ENPs in Europe. However, a devastating lack of
industry willingness to interact was suffered, as was the case for
a similar effort by the NanoSustain project. Therefore the report
was based upon a review of the peer-reviewed as well as grey
literature (reports from R&D projects, reports to governmental
Compendium of Projects in the European NanoSafety Cluster 103