OECD Report Examines How to Determine Concentrations of Manufactured Nanomaterials in Workplace Air

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has posted an October 30, 2017, report entitled Strategies, Techniques and Sampling Protocols for Determining the Concentrations of Manufactured Nanomaterials in Air at the Workplace.  The objective of the report is to contribute to existing knowledge regarding methods for measuring characteristics of airborne nanoparticles and controlling occupational exposure to airborne nanoparticles, and to gather data on nanoparticle emission and transport in various workplaces.  The report includes the findings of research undertaken in non-industrial nanotechnology workplaces involving the measurement of nanomaterials emissions and exposures.  It presents six case studies that demonstrate how measurement and assessment of nanomaterials can be undertaken and how results can be interpreted:  grinding and extrusion of modified titanium dioxide; manufacture of clay-polyurethane nanocomposite material; grinding of titanium dioxide powder; jet milling of modified clay particles; decanting of single- and multi-walled carbon nanotubes; and synthesis of carbon nanotubes using chemical vapor deposition.  The report notes that “it is worth mentioning that this document contributed to the development of the document ‘Harmonized Tiered Approach to Measure and Assess the Potential Exposure to Airborne Emissions of Engineered Nano-Objects and their Agglomerates and Aggregates at Workplaces’ published as No.55 in the OECD Series on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials [ENV/JM/MONO(2015)19].”