Nanomaterials are so small they are invisible to the naked eye, yet powerful enough to revolutionize any industry, but with their great potential come great risks. How do we ensure these materials, often hailed as a new step in the industrial revolution, are safe for both people and the planet? One tool used for this the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which evaluates and monitors a product or process’ environmental impacts from start to finish, but new approaches more suited to their characteristics are being evaluated.
As materials engineered at nanoscale, meaning between 1 and 100 nanometers in size, nanomaterials exhibit unique properties, often significantly different from their normal-sized counterparts. These properties, such as enhanced strength, improved electrical conductivity, and increased reactivity, make nanomaterials highly valuable across multiple industries, from medicine to electronics, energy, and environmental science. Furthermore, to achieve specific functions or optimize a material’s suitability to its task, researchers can even tailor target properties by varying the nanomaterials’ characteristics like size, shape, and composition.
One such change is rising the surface-to-volume ratio to enhance catalytic activity and ion storage capacity, which are important in energy conversion and storage applications. Other proprieties of interest span from optical properties to melting point, and more. This ability to customize each material, combined with their small size, makes nanomaterials valuable for more specific applications.
These very characteristics, the ones that make nanomaterials so promising, can also pose significant challenges. Due to their small size and the same high surface-area-to-volume ratio that can be so useful, nanomaterials can behave unpredictably in biological and environmental systems. This then creates concerns over both their potential toxicity, and long-term environmental impacts, and thus can raise doubts on the sustainability of their production processes.
To address these challenges, first one has to try quantify and locate in which steps of the process to focus, to do this researchers can rely on LCA, a systematic method for evaluating the environmental impact of a product or process throughout its entire life cycle. This assessment to provide a comprehensive view by considering all stages, from raw material extraction and manufacturing to usage and disposal. This approach helps identify environmental hotspots, those high-impact stages of greatest concern, allowing researchers and industries to make informed decisions on improving sustainability.
The LCA framework and processi s well known and used by researchers across the globe. Following the relebant regulation this assessment is developed in four steps:
Goal and Scope Definition – Determining the purpose of the LCA and defining system boundaries, meaning what is considered in the calculation of teh impacts.
Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) – Collecting data on energy and material inputs and outputs at each stage of the process.
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) – Evaluating potential environmental impacts, such as carbon footprint, resource depletion, and toxicity, this is done by compining the inputs gathered with impact factors tied to different impact categories, which vary with different assessment methods and aims of teh studt.
Interpretation – Analyzing the otained results, clarifying their meaning and what they can mean, all to help guiding decision-making and recommend improvements.
While LCA can be a powerful tool, applying it to nanomaterial research presents unique difficulties. One of the most pressing challenges is the lack of reliable data on the environmental impact of nanomaterials. Nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving field, and often with very interesting possible application that render all data on their production sensitive, this makes it quite hard to compile any standardized datasets on the production, use, and disposal of nanomaterials. Additionally, nanomaterial-specific risks, such as unknown toxicity pathways and interactions with ecosystems, are not yet fully understood, making impact assessments highly complex. This is exacerbated by their small size and with relative newness, proprieties that make interactions between pollutants and peopole or ecosystems even harder, certain nanoparticles can even penetrate the lungs’ membrane and enter the bloodstream, potentially impacting any organ. Some studies suggest that nanoparticles may penetrate the skin more deeply than previously thought, raising concerns about long-term exposure and accumulation in the body from sunscreens and cosmetics, which is why a particolar focus of our research is in this field, along with nanoparticle integration in textiles, which are also in close contact with the skin.
Another concern is the inconsistency in measurement and reporting, as tisi s an ever-evolving field there isn’t yet a well-establised framework, meaning that different studies may use varying methodologies, making comparisons difficult. This is further complicated by distinct behaviors of different nanomaterials, which traditional LCA models often struggle to account for, necessitating tailored approaches.
One proposed solution to some of this complications is the SSbD (Safe and Sustainable by Design) framework. The SSbD approach aims to integrate safety and sustainability analysis from the early stages of process development, instead of assessing environmental impacts only after a product’s process is fully developed, SSBD encourages proactive design choices that minimize potential risks from the outset.
The SSbD framework has just started developing, with events and inputs from stakeholders and researchers being highly valued so that the approach can be as complete as possible. As our project grows we aim to tackle interest areas found during the framework developement process, taking inspiration from this innovative approach, for example:
Improving data collection and standardization, ensuring more reliable environmental impact assessments and aviability for easy impact assessment.
Encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, involving experts in material science, toxicology, and environmental engineering, along with stakeholders and outreach events.
Providing guidelines for safer design, reducing uncertainties associated with the long-term effects of nanomaterials trough testing and AI-assisted modeling.
By integrating LCA with the SSBD framework, we hope to better navigate the complexities of nanomaterial sustainability, ensuring that their exciting opportunities may bring us to a more sustainable future, while minimizing and properly managing any potential risks and impacts.
With this combined approach we hope to gain a valuable tool for understanding and mitigating these effects, offering a promising path forward, fostering a more systematic, safety-conscious, and sustainable approach to nanomaterial innovation. As research progresses, continued collaboration and data-sharing will be essential in refining these methods, our research aims to create a database that is complete and intuitive, ensuring a responsible path forward for nanomaterial development.
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