Risk screening tools for engineered nanomaterials

Abstract

It has now been more than 15 years since scientists, researchers, risk analyzers, policymakers, and other decision-makers initiated comprehensive investigations into the potential environmental, health, and safety risks of engineered nanomaterials. During this time, various tools have been proposed and/or developed to screen potential environmental, health, and safety risks of engineered nanomaterials. Risk screening tools provide a first-tiered, screening-level evaluation to better understand risks without significant time and resource investments. Stakeholders interested in obtaining an initial screen of potential environmental, health, and safety risks of a nanomaterial or product may find risk screening tools particularly useful to formulate decisions, and/or communicate potential risks to stakeholders. This chapter overviews five leading risk screening tools developed specifically for nanomaterials: NanoRiskCat, Swiss Precautionary Matrix, LICARA nanoSCAN, NanoGRID, and GUIDEnano. The selected tools differ in scope, aims, underlying methodologies, and generated output. These tools were selected for further exploration due to the maturity of their development, application in multiple case studies, projects, and initiatives. After highlighting the main features of each of the risk screening tools, we provide brief guidance on their use and formulate broad recommendations for the field of nanomaterial risk screening tool development.