Abstract
Polymer binder modification with inorganic nanomaterials (NM) could be a potential and efficient solution to control matrix flammability of polymer concrete (PC) materials without sacrificing other important properties. Occupational exposures can occur all along the life cycle of a NM and “nanoproducts” from research through scale-up, product development, manufacturing, and end of life. The main objective of the present study is to analyse and compare different qualitative risk assessment methods during the production of polymer mortars (PM) with NM. The laboratory scale production process was divided in 3 main phases (pre-production, production and post-production), which allow testing the assessment methods in different situations. The risk assessment involved in the manufacturing process of PM was made by using the qualitative analyses based on: French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety method (ANSES); Control Banding Nanotool (CB Nanotool); Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne method (EPFL); Guidance working safely with nanomaterials and nanoproducts (GWSNN); Istituto Superiore per la Prevenzione e la Sicurezza del Lavoro, Italy method (ISPESL); Precautionary Matrix for Synthetic Nanomaterials (PMSN); and Stoffenmanager Nano. It was verified that the different methods applied also produce different final results. In phases 1 and 3 the risk assessment tends to be classified as medium-high risk, while for phase 2 the more common result is medium level. It is necessary to improve the use of qualitative methods by defining narrow criteria for the methods selection for each assessed situation, bearing in mind that the uncertainties are also a relevant factor when dealing with the risk related to nanotechnologies field.
Highlights
The need for a building material with high strength and durability afforded the development of a relatively "new" composite material: polymer concrete (PC) [1]
Risk assessment methods The risk assessment involved in the manufacturing process of polymer mortars (PM) was made by using the qualitative analyses based on: French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety method (ANSES), from France; Control Banding Nanotool (CB Nanotool), from United States of America; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne method (EPFL), from Swiss; Guidance working safely with nanomaterials and nanoproducts (GWSNN), from
Inputs for the assessment – risk determinants From the previous sections it is possible to verify that the different methods consider different characteristics from the nano-objects and take in consideration different aspects from the tasks performed
Summary
The need for a building material with high strength and durability afforded the development of a relatively "new" composite material: polymer concrete (PC) [1]. The NM use as flame retardant (FR) is promising, this technique is still giving the first steps [5, 6]. The majority of research work on the subject of polymer flame retardancy by means of NM has been carried out on polymer-clay NC. The few studies focusing on this issue show promising results attesting that alumina nanoparticles incorporation can improve thermal stability and other relevant properties of final composite [5,6,7,8,9]
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