Oct 5 2010
LGC Standards, Europe's leading supplier of reference materials, has launched a range of reference nanomaterials to aid research and testing into the applications and impacts of nanotechnology, which is widely regarded as one of the most important new technologies of the 21st century.
Nanotechnology holds considerable promise in many technological areas and industrial sectors and the application of nanoscience to everyday products means they can be made lighter, stronger, cleaner and more effective. Nanomaterials are now used in a wide range of applications from food packaging and sunscreens to surface coatings and sports equipment. With the increasing presence of nanomaterials in new products, there has been a substantial increase in research into their manufacture, characterisation and applications and this has been matched by growth in demand for characterised reference materials.
One of the most comprehensive nanomaterial research programmes is being carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN).
Dr Christoph Klein, representing the European Commission's Joint Research Centre - Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (IHCP), on the WPMN, said: "At IHCP, our primary goal is to provide scientific support to European Union policy regarding nanotechnology and public health in a sustainable environment. Within the WPMN, we have focused our work on a priority list of representative Manufactured Nanomaterials for which development of data would support characterisation, measurement, toxicological and ecotoxicological testing, and risk assessment or safety evaluation of Manufactured Nanomaterials."
The range of reference nanomaterials used within the OECD WPMN international testing programme and released by the European Commission JRC are now available from LGC Standards. They include: multi-walled carbon nanotubes, silver nanoparticles, titanium dioxide, cerium oxide, zinc oxide, and silicon dioxide.
Jane Firth, Sector Manager at LGC Standards, commented: "LGC Standards provides laboratory quality management solutions, serving customers across a wide range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to food and from life science to the materials industries. Nanoscience has applications across all these sectors and we are extremely pleased to add nanomaterials to our range of 70,000 reference materials. These reference nanomaterials provide researchers with characterised materials for use in their testing models."
These reference materials are available from LGC Standards, the division of LGC that provides products and services to support measurement in the laboratory. For prices and ordering information, please email: [email protected] or tel: +44 (0)20 8943 8480.