Advanced Characterisation Methodologies to assess and predict the Health and Environmental Risks of Advanced Materials

ongoing

MACRAMÉ’s Central Objective is to: • detect, characterise and quantify Advanced Materials during their processing and product-life-cycle (incl. recycling/end-of-life) to assess (e.g. ecotox-/tox-test) the resulting impact on (human) health and the environment if/when they pose (intended or unintended) exposures to humans and/or the environment and to • advance (i.e. prepare for standardisation & harmonisation/’regulatory validation’) the wide-spread applicability and application of the developed test- and characterisation methods, by demonstrating their effectiveness and efficiency in the context of existing, market-relevant industrial materials, processes and products. In alignment with the EU strategies to secure the safety and sustainability of enabling and emerging technologies (incl. those based on chemicals and materials, as addressed in the EU’s Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (2020), and in the European Green Deal (2021)), the MACRAMÉ Project focusses on the development of methodologies that are applicable to ‘Advanced Materials (AdMas)’ - a categories that includes, but surpasses that of ‘nanomaterials’ (EU, ‘Definition of a Nanomaterial’), and that is aligned with the future-oriented innovation, safety and sustainability considerations at the OECD (OECD (2020)), the EU (EU (2022)), and several of its Member States (e.g. Germany (2021)); this will be achieved by focussing the development and demonstration of novel methods and methodologies, as well as the advancement of their harmonisation and standardisation on (planned inhalable carbon-based AdMas in a variety of morphologies and dimensions, moving beyond spherical particles: (a) graphene-related material (GRM), (b) carbon fibres (CNTs), and (c) Poly Lactic-co-Glycolic Acid (PLGA). The focus on carbon-based AdMa is due to unsolved detection and characterisation issues especially in complex media.