from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The employers shall ensure adequate safety and health protection of the workers. They are obliged to carry out risk assessment and take appropriate measures for risk prevention and control related to all relevant workplace hazards. However, sound risk assessment requires reliable comprehensive information on hazard (toxicity) and exposure which may not be available for many, especially novel, substances and materials, such as nanomaterials (both engineered and accidental). The generally accepted approach used for preliminary risk assessment of nanomaterials is Control banding (CB). CB is a pragmatic tool to manage the risk resulting from exposure to potentially hazardous substances in the absence of firm toxicological and exposure data. Currently, several CB tools have been developed within the international research activities. The aim of this study was to review the CB tools that are presently available for qualitative, semi-quantitative or quantitative estimation of exposure and risk associated with the manufacture and professional use of nanomaterials. The applicability of the various tools was evaluated using two real-life occupational exposure scenarios. Furthermore, the positives, negatives (limitations) of these tools, and the recommendation on their usefulness in particular industrial sectors were analysed.
Keywords: nanomaterials, occupational exposure, risk assessment, control banding tools© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.