Nanotechnology and Exposure Scenarios

Exposure scenarios are an essential tool for risk assessment, management and communications. As nanotechnology is still an emerging field, with an increasing variety of manufactured materials and applications, there is a great paucity of data on human exposure across the life-cycle of manufactured nanomaterials and products. Harmonization of data collection and storage and sharing of information in the form of standardized exposure scenario descriptions will aid the risk assessment process. This chapter firstly describes the development of the nanotechnology industrial sector, including the manufacturing processes and applications of ENMs. Subsequently, it describes the contents of exposure scenarios and presents a number of examples of exposure scenarios that were developed as part of the NANODEVICE project.