Article: Create nanotech safety measures

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Safety experts said more planning is needed to ensure nanotechnology-safe workplaces across the United States in the future.

Little is known about potential risks in many areas of nanotechnology, including worker exposures, said expert Andrew Maynard in an article published in Cleanroom Technology magazine. Maynard is the chief science adviser for Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

"Because nanotechnology is a way of doing or making things rather than a discrete technology, there will never be a one-solution-fits-all approach for nanotechnology and nanomaterials workplace safety," Maynard said.

Maynard recommended the U.S. government invest at least $100 million over the next two years to fill "occupational safety knowledge gaps" in safe nanotechnology workplaces.

Nanotechnology was incorporated into about $30 billion in manufactured goods, and experts predict that number will increase to $2.6 billion by 2014. These nantechnology-based products include computer chips, automobile parts, clothing and cosmetics.

Nanotechnology works with things between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is 1-billionth of a meter.