The SAbyNA project, which is funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, has come to a successful conclusion after more than four years of work dedicated to providing guidance on how to develop nanomaterials and nano-enabled products more safely and sustainably.
The project was coordinated by Dr. Socorro Vázquez-Campos de Leitat and led to the creation of a comprehensive web-based guidance platform (https://platform.sabyna.eu/) which provides guidelines and tools to support the development of safer nanomaterials and products. This platform is aimed at designers, developers and producers of nanotechnology-enabled materials and products, and researchers. The platform focuses on guiding two main sectors in particular, Paints and Additive Manufacturing, on developing safer nanotechnology-based products.
Socorro Vázquez-Campos: “SAbyNA represented a crucial step forward in providing methodologies for designing and developing safer nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products. The web-based guidance platform produced in this project will be an invaluable resource for driving innovation and ensuring a safer, more sustainable future for nanotechnology.”
Unlike traditional approaches that address the safety of new technologies reactively, SAbyNA focused on building strategies to assess safety proactively in the early stages of designing and developing products and processes. This is aimed at maximising safety for workers, consumers and the environment, while maintaining all the benefits of the functionality provided by nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products.
Integrated Platform for Developing Safer Nanotechnology
The SAbyNA Guidance Platform offers a wide range of resources to support the safer, more sustainable design and development of nanotechnology, including:
- A step-by-step procedure to assess the safety of nanoparticles, manufacturing processes and the intended use of nanotechnology-enabled products more easily and in greater depth.
- Detailed guidelines covering the workflows and strategies needed to improve safety, sustainability and costs throughout the entire life cycle of nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products, from production to disposal.
- Tools, models and methodologies to assess safety, sustainability and costs in the design and development of nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products.
- Data resources to facilitate access to existing and new environmental and occupational health and safety data for conducting various assessments.
- Simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost assessment tools for environmental sustainability and cost assessment adapted to the two main sectors (Paints and Additive Manufacturing).
As Ralph Vanhauten, co-owner of ThinkWorks B.V., who led the development of the platform, said, “SAbyNA provides expert guidance with resources such as guidelines and databases. It also makes it possible to configure customised cases and carry out simplified sustainability and cost assessments. To build a case, users need to enter materials, and describe the intended use and possible release, exposure and risk scenarios. These steps can be carried out using clickable menus and databases linked to the online application. Users are guided through knowledge modules on how to identify potential risks to human health and the environment, and specific actions are suggested to reduce or mitigate those risks. Finally, different scenarios can be compared, thereby facilitating the decision-making process (safer, sustainable, cost-effective solutions that maintain or improve the functionality of the product)”.
The results of the SAbyNA project mark a significant breakthrough for the nanotechnology industry, providing a comprehensive framework for developing nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products responsibly. The SAbyNA Online Guidance Platform is expected to become an essential tool for industry, developers and researchers, and will contribute to a safer, more sustainable future for nanotechnology.
Daniel Persson, an Inorganic Specialties R&D scientist at Nouryon, commented: “Nouryon is a global leader in speciality chemical products and a supplier of standard, silane-modified colloidal silica, and we joined the SAbyNA project to further our understanding of the reduced toxicity observed after the surface modification of silica nanoforms with silane. We used the SAbyNA methodologies and other assessment tools to confirm our previous studies and identify the optimal degree of surface functionalisation required to achieve the full effect on a range of samples with increasing surface coverage of silane. These findings are of great interest to producers of other nanomaterials, where similar safe design strategies could be applied during the design of nanotechnology-enabled product materials”.
Although the SAbyNA project officially ended on May 31, 2024, its legacy of innovation and safety in nanotechnology lives on. The online Guidance Platform and resources developed during the project will continue to be accessible and updated, thereby ensuring that their positive impact will carry on over time.
Beyond the Platform, the SAbyNA project community has grown into a vibrant network of experts and practitioners committed to developing nanotechnology responsibly. This network will continue to collaborate and promote new research and projects, and will make sure that SAbyNA's proactive, safe approach continues to set the standard for future applications of nanotechnology.
Araceli Sánchez-Jiménez, from the Spanish National Institute for Safety and Health and a member of the SAbyNA Advisory Board, said: "SAbyNA has transformed the complex Safety and Sustainability by Design (SSbD) assessment into an optimised, collaborative process. It has made it possible to visualise the impact of changes to the properties of materials and process parameters on safety and sustainability, facilitating informed decision making". She added: “Looking beyond assessment, SAbyNA focused on design and provided solutions to make its nanomaterials, products and processes safer and more sustainable.”
The community and resources created during the project will serve as a solid basis for future initiatives, ensuring that nanotechnology continues to support technological progress while producing safer, more sustainable nanotechnology-enabled products.
About SAbyNA
SAbyNA (Safe by Design for Nanomaterials) was a project funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme (G.A. No. 862419) which was aimed at developing safe design strategies for nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products. The project was coordinated by Dr. Socorro Vázquez-Campos from Leitat and included a consortium of 17 partners, made up of universities, technology centres, research institutes and industry (SMEs and large companies).
GAIKER's work
In this project, GAIKER, which has extensive experience in assessing the safety and sustainability of products that contain nanomaterials and in the use of safe, sustainable design tools, was responsible for developing a simplified platform for carrying out a life cycle analysis (LCA) to assess the environmental implications of incorporating nanomaterials into products in two main sectors, additive manufacturing and paints. It was also involved in developing a strategy for assessing security that was verified with two case studies for these sectors.
For more information:
- SAbyNA Project Website: https://www.sabyna.eu/
- Official SAbyNA Video: https://youtu.be/j9NGxPtl8Xs?feature=shared
- SAbyNA Project on the European Commission Portal:
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/862419
