Other language confidence: 0.5563437266596505
The MARINA project is a major new European Commission Framework 7 project to develop reference methods for managing the risk of engineered nanoparticles and engineered nanomaterials (ENM). With very significant economic impact across industrial, consumer and medical products, nanotechnology is now one of the key industries within Europe and worldwide. Key to its long term growth and sustainability is establishing end-user confidence that the technologies developed arc safe. While there are standard procedures for product life cycle analysis, exposure, hazard, and risk assessment for traditional chemicals, it is not yet clear how these procedures need to be modified to address all the novel properties of nanomaterials. There is a need to develop specific reference methods for all the main steps in managing the potential risk of ENM. The aim of MARINA is to develop such methods. MARINA will address the four central themes in the risk management paradigm for ENM: Materials, Exposure, Hazard and Risk. The methods developed by MARINA will be (i) based on beyond-state-of-the-art understanding of the properties, interaction and fate of ENM in relation to human health and the quality of the environment and will either (ii) be newly developed or adapted from existing ones but ultimately, they will be compared/validated and harmonised/standardized as reference methods for managing.
Objective: The growing development, production and use of engineered nano-materials and associated products will increase exposure of both humans and ecosystems to these new materials. However, current knowledge is still incomplete and established test methods are as yet inappropriate to reliably assess the extent of exposure and risk of materials at the nano-scale. There is an urgent need to develop methods to overcome the current limitations of existing hazard and risk assessment schemes and to generate the body of reference data needed as the basis for regulative requirements and for measures to safeguard production, application and the disposal of nano-materials. The proposed project will mobilize the critical mass of international scientific knowledge and technical expertise required to address these questions. Current analytical and toxicity test methods and models will be put to test and subjected to rigorous intercalibration and validation. Where necessary, methods and test materials will be modified, adapted and validated, and new reliable reference methods developed, in cooperation with international standardisation bodies and the concerned industry, to support both pre and co-normative activities and to make the applicability of existing RA and LCA schemes to ENPs more reliable. The feasibility of validated measurement, characterization and test methods will be assessed by selected case studies to help the significant improvement of the performance of existing exposure monitoring systems as well as the development of new risk management and reduction strategies.
NANOINSULATE will develop durable, robust, cost-effective opaque and transparent vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) incorporating new nanotechnology-based core materials (nanofoams, aerogels, aerogel composites) and high-barrier films that are up to four times more energy efficient than current solutions. These new systems will provide product lifetimes in excess of 50 years suitable for a variety of new-build and retrofit building applications. Initial building simulations based on the anticipated final properties of the VIPs indicate reductions in heating demand of up to 74Prozent and CO2 emissions of up to 46Prozent for Madrid, Spain and up to 61Prozent and 55Prozent respectively for Stuttgart, Germany for a building renovation which reduces the U-value of the walls and roof from 2.0 W m-2 K-1 to 0.2 W m-2 K-1. This reduction could be achieved with NANOINSULATE products that are only 25 mm thick, giving a cost-effective renovation without the need of changing all the reveals and ledges. Similarly, significant reductions in U-values of transparent VIPs (3 W m-2 K-1 to 0.5 W m-2 K-1) are shown by substituting double glazed units in existing building stock. Six industrial & four research based partners from seven EU countries will come together to engineer novel solutions capable of being mass produced. Target final manufacturing costs for insulation board (production rates above 5 million m2/year) are less than 7 m-2 for a U-value of 0.2 W m-2 K-1. NANOINSULATE will demonstrate its developments at construction sites across Europe. A Lifecycle Assessment, together with a safety and service-life costing analysis, will be undertaken to prove economic viability. NANOINSULATE demonstrates strong relevance to the objectives and expected impacts of both the specific call text of the Public-Private Partnership Energy-efficient Buildings topic New nanotechnology-based high performance insulation systems for energy efficiency within the 2010 NMP Work Programme and the wider NMP & Energy Thematic Priorities. Prime Contractor: Kingsplan Research and Developments Ltd.; Kingscourt; Irland.
Concept: NanoFATE has been conceived to fill knowledge and methodological gaps currently impeding sound assessment of environmental risks posed by engineered nano-particles (ENPs). Our vision is to assess environmental fate and risk of ENPs from high-volume products for which recycling is not an option; namely; fuel additive, personal care and antibacterial products. Two market ENPs from each product (CeO2, ZnO, Ag of varying size, surface and core chemistries) will be followed through their post-production life cycles i.e. from environmental entry as spent product, through waste treatment to their final fates and potential toxic effects. This will test the applicability of current fate and risk assessment methods and identify improvements required for a scientific assessment of ENPs at an early stage. Objectives: Such systematic study of the environmental fate and toxicity of selected ENPs will entail addressing 9 S&T objectives: 1: Design, tagging and manufacture of ENPs 2: Analysis of ENP interactions with abiotic and biotic entities 3: Generating predictive models for ENP exposure in waters and sludge-amended soils 4: Studying the fate and behaviour of ENPs through wastewater treatment 5: Determining acute and chronic ecotoxicity 6: Assessing effects of physico-chemical properties on ENP bioavailability 7: Defining mechanisms of uptake, internal trafficking, and toxicity 8: Developing spatial RA model(s) 9: Improving understanding of ENP risks Methodology: The work plan is designed to progress beyond the state-of-the-art through focused work packages. While some objectives are delivered in single WPs, good cross WP integration will secure the key objectives of delivering new methods for quantifying ENP risks. Impact: NanoFATE will provide robust tools, techniques and knowledge needed by stakeholders to understand and communicate risks associated with different ENPs, including their environmental interactions and toxicity.
A major challenge facing European industry involves the development of more specific, energy saving processes with less environmental impact. The recent development of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) may prove a major milestone in achieving these goals. MACADEMIA project is an extension to FP6 STREP (DeSANNS) which highlighted some MOF materials for CO2 capture and storage. It will expand and continue this work on a much larger scale. BASF and TOTAL companies, major industrial partners, complement each othe... Prime Contractor: Total S.A.; Courbevoie; France.
The overall objective of MESSIB is the development, evaluation and demonstration of an affordable multi-source energy storage system (MESS) integrated in building, based on new materials, technologies and control systems, for significant reduction of its energy consumption and active management of the building energy demand. This new concept will reduce and manage smartly the electrical energy required from the grid favouring the wider use of renewable energy sources . It will reduce raw material use for thermal performance and improve the indoor environment, the quality and security of energy supply at building and district level, including Cultural Heritage buildings. Furthermore, a significant reduction of the energy unit cost for end-users will be achieved. MESS is composed by two thermal and two electrical storage systems, integrated with the building installations and a control system to manage the building energy demand. The MESSIB basic principles are: - Rational use of thermal energy for primary energy savings and for increasing the indoor comfort. - Improvement of electrical energy storage in combination with RES to shift the demand with the production and to optimise the use of low cost off peak power from the grid. - Integration of the technologies in the building. Each of the technologies developed in the project will be integrated with conventional installations optimizing their functionality. - An active control system will manage the profile of use of each storage system and their interactions. This will contribute to the intelligent management of building energy demand and to ensure its security, quality and reliability. Prime Contractor: Acciona Infraestructuras S.A.; Alcobendas; Spanien (ES).
Objective: Metal oxide and metal NPs are particularly dangerous for two reasons: their special catalytic activity coming from the properties of their nanointerface may interfere with numerous intracellular biochemical processes and the decomposition of NPs and the ion leakage could heavily interfere with the intracellular free metal ion homeostasis, which is essential for cell metabolism. A very specific problem is the difficulty of localizing and quantifying them in cells. Obtaining dose effect relationships is not simple, because of the unknown amount of material present in affected cells. The following main points will be addressed in this proposal: - Design and synthesis of metal oxide and metal NPs, which can be traced by SPECT, PET, and fluorescence techniques and the appropriate characterization of these NPs. - Application of label-free techniques, such as IBM and EM to ensure that the radioactive and fluorescent constituents do not modify the cytological and organismic response by themselves. - Characterization of the uptake, distribution kinetics and NP release at the level of the organism. - Study of the interaction of NPs with plasma components forming complexes with NPs and the assessment of their possible impact on the uptake compared with that of bare or capped particles. - Quantification and localization of metallic NPs in immune competent cells is a key task for the establishment of proper dose-response correlations. A technique applicable with living cells as ultimate control will be IBM, capable of detecting single metal NPs in cells at different depths. - Development of sophisticated cell physiological approaches focusing on the determination of oxidative activity, cytokine production and adaptive processes concerning signalling pathways beyond standard vitality tests. The research project will indicate toxic levels of various NPs and sub-toxic effects will be investigated by analysing the signalling response of immune cells.
Objective: We propose to use our recent advanced research results and build a novel and useful automatic database on the impact of nano-particles on health and environment, which will be hosted and maintained by a expert software company based in Europe. The strength and innovation is double folded: primarily in automatic extraction and understanding from free text, which is in particular suited to create a comprehensive database in the nano-particles area; and secondly creating automated tools for appropriate evolving ontology assisted by leaders in toxicity in Europe. The team has proven mathematical and computerized world level skills in the general area of Information Technology pertained to database, data warehouse and text mining on one hand, and in toxicity of nano-particles in particular on the other hand. The proposed database will be automatically and manually updated with state-of-the-art information, which will be automatically understood and extracted into a relational database and data warehouse that can be accessed by the public and agencies through the internet. These three tiers (information gathering, deep analysis, and presentation) will keep the database updated and easily used for complex queries. The database will serve a variety of communities, from regulators to scientists, companies, new activities and the general public with all aspects of toxicity from nano particles. The database and the internet site will also serve for expert information cooperation and exchange and for dissemination of information in this evolving domain, which has huge potential applications, where toxicity should be considered in advance.
Objective: Engineered nanomaterials (ENs) present tremendous opportunities for industrial growth and development, and hold great promise for the enrichment of the lives of citizens, in medicine, electronics, and numerous other areas. However, there are considerable gaps in our knowledge concerning the potential hazardous effects of ENs on human health and the environment. Our EU-US partnership is committed to filling these knowledge gaps through a comprehensive assessment of ENs, with particular focus on effects on the immune system. The immune system is designed to respond to pathogens and foreign particles, and a core concept underpinning the current project is that the recognition versus non-recognition of ENs by immune-competent cells will determine the distribution as well as the toxicological potential of these materials. Our multidisciplinary consortium will focus on the procurement, synthesis and detailed physico-chemical characterization of representative categories of ENs, and the monitoring of potential hazardous effects using an array of in vitro and in vivo systems, as well as transcriptomic and oxidative lipidomic testing to determine specific nanotoxic profiles (signatures) of these materials. The final and integrative component of our research project is risk assessment of potential adverse effects of ENs on human health, and the dissemination of our findings. Through our comprehensive approach, which combines analytical procedures from many different disciplines and leading experts from several national institutes devoted to occupational and environmental safety, we aim to establish a panel of read-out systems for the prediction of the toxic potential of existing and emerging ENs, thus enabling a continuous and sustainable growth of the nanotechnologies. Overall, the results generated through this international program will contribute to the understanding and mitigation of possible adverse effects of nanomaterials.
Objective: A major limitation on the application of the unique properties of carbon nanotubes has been their high cost and lack of availability. This IP brings together leading laboratories and companies within Europe to produce nanotubes on a bulk scale of ultimately tons per year. The large-scale growth of carbon nanotubes will be developed by chemical vapour deposition (CVD). The applications in electronics as interconnects and vias for integrated circuits, for field effect transistors, and spin coherent transport will be developed. Field emission will be developed further for use in microwave amplifiers and micron scale x-ray sources. Electronic applications will be enabled by controlled growth in plasma enhanced CVD and thermal CVD. Multi-wall CNTs will be used as a catalyst in large-scale chemical reactions such as the dehydrogenation of ethyl benzene to styrene. Control of the nanotube internal orientation to give the herring bone microstructure is needed for catalysis, as plane edges are catalytically active. Fictionalisation of CNTs will be extended, in order to improve the performance of structural, electrically conducting and thermally conducting nanotube-polymer composites. Dispersion of nanotubes at high loading will be achieved in polymers to obtain high strength composites. Nanotubes are known to act as high energy density actuators, or 'artificial muscles'. Nanobiological devices will be fabricated based on self-assembly and molecular absorption. A toxicological study of CNTs particularly with respect to possible health hazards will be carried out, and nanotube/polymer composites will be tested for biocompatibility. Public acceptance of nanomaterials and nanotechnology will be encouraged by publicity and poling. Training, workshops and conferences will be held, and to promote technology transfer from universities and research institutes to companies. SMEs will be dominant in the CVD, catalysis and composite applications
| Organisation | Count |
|---|---|
| Bund | 59 |
| Wissenschaft | 31 |
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| Förderprogramm | 59 |
| License | Count |
|---|---|
| Offen | 59 |
| Language | Count |
|---|---|
| Deutsch | 2 |
| Englisch | 58 |
| Resource type | Count |
|---|---|
| Keine | 29 |
| Webseite | 30 |
| Topic | Count |
|---|---|
| Boden | 45 |
| Lebewesen und Lebensräume | 52 |
| Luft | 48 |
| Mensch und Umwelt | 59 |
| Wasser | 28 |
| Weitere | 59 |