• Project number: F 2480
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Completed Project

Description:

Grouping concepts can complete necessary information for the risk assessment process of materials under the chemicals registration (REACH), as material properties can be predicted based on analogous and equally grouped materials. For this reason, methods for risk assessment and grouping of nanomaterials were specifically applied to non-nanomaterials in InnoMat.Life and tested to see whether they are transferable.

Three types of materials were used in the BMBF-funded consortium project, polymers, fibrous materials and materials of complex morphology. The research focus of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA) was on the fibrous materials. A scheme was created for the banding of fibre properties that influence the aspects of risk, i.e. the exposure and hazard potential.  This scheme serves as the basis for the risk grouping and was tested on a variety of fibre materials demonstrating the great heterogeneity of fibres and consequently the broad distribution of risk. New experimental approaches were also developed to fill methodological gaps in material testing. Of particular note is the development of an aerosol selection technique that can be used to generate suitable test aerosols from fibrous materials. In particular, the control of the fraction of effect-relevant fibres in a fibre dose aims to improve the quality for toxicological studies. In addition, in vitro alternatives to animal testing were developed and tested regarding their ability to characterise the pathology of potentially carcinogenic fibres.

As a result of the project, further projects were initiated to continue the developmental work on the methods with the aim of incorporating them into newly formulated and supplemented OECD guidelines for the testing of chemicals.