Stiftelsen Oscar och Lili Lamms Minne
Du är här: Hem // 2011 
TitelThe role of reliability and relevance criteria in environmental risk assessment of nanometerials.
NoDO2011-0041
UniversitetKTH
InstitutionFilosofi och Teknikhistoria
HuvudsökandeChristina Rudén
Beviljat belopp 500 000
Sammanfattning
Aim The overall purpose of our work is to strengthen the protection of the environment, especially the aquatic environment since many chemicals end up there. The overall purpose of the proposed project is to contribute to making environmental risk assessments more transparent, systematic, and predictable. The aim of this project is to highlight how ecotoxicological data are reported, evaluated and used, and to investigate the possibility to use defined reliability criteria in the risk assessment process. The purpose of a risk assessment is to serve as the basis for decisions to manage chemical risks. A risk assessment is the result of the selected data and selected method used to handle the data. To arrive at robust and scientifically based risk assessments empirical (eco)toxicological data of high reliability is needed. The better the scientific quality the more weight is usually assigned to a study. However, the process of data reliability and relevance evaluation is in many cases in-transparent and few pre-defined and generally accepted criteria are available. We have previously analyzed the reliability of non-standard ecotoxicity data for pharmaceuticals and our results indicate that the data does not always fulfill the reliability criteria needed for environmental risk assessment. This is unfortunate since much of the research done within the field of ecotoxicology and risk assessment is financed through tax payer’s money and to not find a way for use of this data in regulatory risk assessments is an inefficient and irresponsible handling of resources. To facilitate the use of data concerning nanomaterials in environmental risk assessments we will develop reliability and relevance evaluation and reporting criteria. Developing and implementation of such criteria for ecotoxicological studies of nanomaterials is of special importance since different nano forms of chemically same substances, may pose different hazard profiles. This diversity and complexity of nanoparticles makes physic-chemical identification and characterization more difficult, however very important for the regulatory risk assessment. A broader spectrum of properties will be needed to sufficiently characterize a given nanoparticle for the purposes of evaluating hazard and assessing risk. Stone et al., (2010) suggest that a minimum requirement for any (eco)toxicology or environmental study should be the characterization of: aggregation, size, dissolution, surface area, surface charge, and surface composition. The proposed project is a one year project, January-December 2012.