Issue 7, 2024

Advanced materials earliest assessment (AMEA)

Abstract

Advanced materials are rapidly being developed in different material categories. They share little commonalities apart from their novelty, which raises concerns that these materials may fall into a regulatory gap with potentially inappropriate risk management. But how to assess materials that are still under development? Here we present the Advanced Materials Earliest Assessment (AMEA) approach to fill this gap by proposing simple assessment steps and guidance for design rules meant to be applied by innovators in early material development phases (ideation, business case and lab phases). AMEA provides a structured approach to exploit the available knowledge at each phase, starting from the intended product, application and global region, starting also from the conventional material in the same application, of which the sustainability benefits and sustainability challenges often constitute the motivation for advanced material development. During the lab phase, AMEA recommends focusing on acquisition of data with discriminating power, and triggers more requirements and/or specific testing methods depending on the positioning of the material with respect to the three dimensions “nano-enabled?”, “advanced?”, and “containing particles?” The methodological part can be amended for other material classes without relevance of nanostructures. Similarity and ranking approaches compare material versions synthesized in lab phases against each other and the conventional material in terms of performance, lifecycle emissions/exposures and hazards. AMEA prioritizes the discriminating power of specific data to refine the design targets instead of using generic assumptions with high uncertainties. It is the entry point of the HARMLESS decision support system covering the ensuing pilot and launch phases of innovation management to fulfill safe-and-sustainable-by-design material development.

Graphical abstract: Advanced materials earliest assessment (AMEA)

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Nov 2023
Accepted
10 May 2024
First published
30 May 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2024,11, 2948-2967

Advanced materials earliest assessment (AMEA)

W. Wohlleben, M. Persson, B. Suarez-Merino, A. Baun, V. Di Battista, S. Dekkers, E. P. van Someren, D. Broßell, B. Stahlmecke, M. Wiemann, O. Schmid and A. Haase, Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2024, 11, 2948 DOI: 10.1039/D3EN00831B

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