Ann. Occup. Hyg., Vol. 56, No. 5, pp.

489490, 2012
The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press
on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society
doi:10.1093/annhyg/mes044

Editorial

Risks and Control of Nanomaterials

TREVOR OGDEN*
British Occupational Hygiene Society, Melbourne Business Court, Derby DE24 8LZ, UK
Received 28 April 2012; in final form 20 April 2012.

The issue originated with the conference held in

April (2011) by the Institut National de Recherche
et de Scurit (INRS) in Nancy, France, on risks
associated with nanoparticles and nanomaterials.
Topics included measurement and control process
design, occupational toxicology, protection, epidemiology, assessment and management of risk
of nanoparticles. The conference organizers suggested some of the articles that might be considered by the Annals, and this resulted in the opening
review and the last four articles in the issue. This
conference is intended to be the first in a series
of Occupational Health Research Symposia organized by INRS. The second, on mixed exposures,
was held in April 2012, and we hope to publish
some of the articles from that meeting later. Details
of future symposia will be on the INRS website
http://www.inrs.fr/accueil.html. We are pleased to
cooperate with INRS in what promises to become
a major series of European conferences on occupational health.
We are very grateful to Olivier Witschger and
his colleagues at INRS for their part in the selection of the conference articles, which have all been
through the journals normal peer-review process.
We are delighted to cooperate with them in this
way. Some of the rest of the issue was put together
with the help of Derk Brouwer of TNO (TNO,
Zeist, The Netherlands) and we gratefully acknowledge his help.

References
Bmer D, Rgnier R, Subra I et al. (2010) Ultrafine particles
emitted by flame and electric arc guns for thermal spraying
of metals. Ann Occup Hyg; 54: 60714.

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Tel: +44 1332 298101; fax: +44 1332 298099
email: ogden@ogs.org.uk
489

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In this issue we bring together 12 articles on

nanomaterials and approaches to risk control. The
issue opens with a review by Eileen Kuempel and
colleagues of the research needs for effective management of these materials. This is followed by
two items on tools for control: a review of control
banding and a report of discussions on reference values. Then an article describes the development of a
practical generic approach to control, applying the
popular tool Stoffenmanager to nanoparticles.
After this come two articles on exposure: one
in the new field of manufacture of nanotubes and
nanofibres and the other in welding, a process which
dates back to the Bronze Age but which is attracting
new attention because of the very fine component of
the fume. Welding is now often quoted as an example
of process-generated nanoparticles. The nanofibres
article complements others on this topic we have
published recently (Evans et al., 2010; Birch, 2011;
Birch et al., 2011); and exposure to process-generated nanoparticles in welding and related processes
has also been a popular topic (Bmer et al., 2010;
Elihn and Berg, 2009; Pfefferkorn et al., 2010; Beurskens-Comuth et al., 2011; Topham et al., 2012).
Inevitably respiratory protective equipment is an
important control, and there follow three articles
on its effectiveness for these fine particles. Then
comes an article on practical performance of portable exposure meters for nanoparticles, and finally
two articles on toxicological tests of silica and
titanium dioxide.

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T. Ogden

Beurskens-Comuth PAWV, Verbist K, Brouwer D (2011) Video

exposure monitoring as part of a strategy to assess exposure
to nanoparticles. Ann Occup Hyg; 55: 93745.
Birch ME (2011) Exposure and emissions monitoring during
carbon nanofiber productionPart II: Polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons. Ann Occup Hyg; 55: 103747.
Birch ME, Ku B-K, Evans DE et al. (2011) Exposure and
emissions monitoring during carbon nanofiber production
Part I: Elemental carbon and ironsoot aerosols. Ann Occup
Hyg; 55: 101636.
Elihn K, Berg P (2009) Ultrafine particle characteristics in
seven industrial plants. Ann Occup Hyg; 53: 47584.

Evans DE, Ku B-K, Birch ME et al. (2010) Aerosol monitoring during carbon nanofiber production: Mobile direct-reading sampling. Ann Occup Hyg; 54: 51431.
Pfefferkorn FE, Bello D, Haddad G et al. (2010) Characterization of exposures to airborne nanoscale particles during
friction stir welding of aluminum. Ann Occup Hyg; 54:
486503.
Topham N, Wang J, Kalivoda M et al. (2012) Control of
Cr6+ emissions from gas metal arc welding using a silica
precursor as a shielding gas additive. Ann Occup Hyg; 56:
23341.

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