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My Research

1. Problem statement

Nanomaterials are materials which have at least one dimension at the nanoscale (i.e. 1-100 nm), while nanoproducts (NPs) are products that contain nanomaterials. During the last decade there has been an huge increase in the development of nano-enabled applications as they have superior properties compared to the products without nanomaterials.

Although NPs may bring significant economic and social benefits, there are rising concerns associated with their environmental and health effects and impacts (OECD, 2012). For this reason, in order to promote a responsible, sustainable and socially accepted development of this emerging technology its risks, benefits and impacts should be carefully assessed.

It has been suggested that sustainability assessment methodologies such as risk assessment (RA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) could be applied succesfully to NPs to evaluate their sustainability if the tools capable of dealing with the high uncertainites that exist in all the steps of these procedures can be integrated (Linkov et Seager, 2011).

2. Research background

All the steps of RA of NPs are constrained by limited data availability and incomparability of results due to lack of standardization (Grieger, 2009). LCA studies of NMs are not comprehensive since they are based on generic data and do not cover all the life cycle stages (Meyer et al., 2009). Furthermore, there is paucity of data about economic and social impacts of NMs and nanoproducts.

This situation leads to the the lack of an agreed set of sustainability criteria to assess the impacts of nanomaterials and nanoproducts and also to the need of tools to support effective sustainability-oriented decision making processes.

Currently, most scientific research is focused on the generation of new experimental data, and until now minor attention was paid by the research community to the application of novel approaches and tools, supporting nano-sustainability assessment using the existing data and information. One the approaches considered useful in this case is Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) (i.e. framework and set of methods to aid decision making processes).

3. Research objectives

The main objectives of this research project are:

  • Identify a reliable and comprehensive set of sustainability criteria to assess nanoproducts impacts;
  • Investigate the role of MCDA methods to support decision making processes oriented towards sustainability assessments;
  • Develop a nano-sustainability model supported by the MCDA approach to holistically evaluate the sustainability of nanoproducts;
  • Apply the nano-sustainability assessment model to a set of selected nanoproducts and test its performance.

4. Methodological approach

The methodological approach proposed is based on relevant instruments identified during appropriate literature review, integrated by the MCDA approach defined as Dominance-Based Rough Set Approach (DRSA). The approach methodology requires:

  • Identification of the sustainability criteria to be used;
  • Definition of the relevant areas of assessment;
  • Structuring of the decision criteria in a coherent framework for their exploitation by means of the DRSA approach;
  • Application of the methodology, accounting for different uncertainties in an integrated, systematic way.

Some upsides of the proposed SA methodology are: (i) documented and repeatable method of integrating indicators; (ii) a powerful data integration technique; (iii) flexibility, which allows to update quickly the methodology by means of additional indicators as soon as new information become available; and (iv) possibility to account for and compare different stakeholders viewpoints (e.g. decision-makers, scientists).

5. Expected results

The proposed methdology could be used to:

  • Obtain sustainability classification of NPs, in terms of maximization of manufacturing efficiences and minimization of risks and impacts;
  • Identify the worst performance during the target life-cycle stage of NPs in terms of impacts and risks, so that improvement measures could be identified;
  • Show the results variability on the basis of different stakeholders preferences.

6. References

Grieger K.D., Hansen S.F., Baun A. (2009). The known unknowns of nanomaterials: Describing and characterizing uncertainty within environmental, health and safety risks. Nanotoxicology 3 (3): 222-233

Linkov I. and Seager T.P. (2011). Coupling Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Life-Cycle Assessment, and Risk Assessment for Emerging Threats. Environmental Science and Technology 45: 5068-5074

Meyer D.E.; Curran M.A.; Gonzalez M.A. (2009). An examination of existing data for the industrial manufacture and use of nanocomponents and their role in the life cycle impact of nanoproducts. Environmenatal Science and Technology 43: 1256-1263

OECD (2012). Important Issues on Risk Assessment of Manufactured Nanomaterials. Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials

Main Supervisor:

KerryDr Kerry Kirwan

Sustainable Materials Group
International Digital Laboratory
WMG
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL
UK

Kerry dot Kirwan[at]warwick dot ac dot uk

Co-supervisor:

Stuart

Dr Stuart Coles

Sustainable Materials Group
International Digital Laboratory
WMG
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL
UK

Stuart dot Coles[at]warwick dot ac dot uk