Outside the wide range of potential benefits, the use of nanomaterials can endanger human health, mostly through skin contact and the risk of inhalation. This article presents the results of harmonized measurements with contextual information on the emission of nanoparticles during the manufacturing and application of nanotechnology products. The purpose of the research was to investigate the actual levels of exposure to nano-objects in real working conditions in chosen Polish companies. Measurements were carried out in various workplaces: during silver nanoparticle synthesis, production of thin nanocarbon layers, 3D-printing with the use of a nanohydroxyapatite-polymer composite and the production of special seals from thin glass foils. Research was conducted on the basis of task-based measurements and offline microscopic analysis. Realtime particle DiSCmini counters were used to determine the nano-object concentration during different processes and events: samplers for collecting air dust, and a scanning electron microscope to confirm the presence of

The growing popularity of solution blow spinning as a method for the production of fibrous tissue engineering scaffolds and the vast range of polymer–solvent systems available for the method raises the need to study the effect of processing conditions on fiber morphology and develop a method for its qualitative assessment. Rheological approaches to determine polymer solution spinnability and image analysis approaches to describe fiber diameter and alignment have been previously proposed, although in a separate manner and mostly for the widely known, well-researched electrospinning method. In this study, a series of methods is presented to determine the processing conditions for the development of submicron fibrous scaffolds. Rheological methods are completed with extensive image analysis to determine the spinnability window for a polymer–solvent system and qualitatively establish the influence of polymer solution concentration and collector rotational speed on fiber morphology, diameter, and alignment. Process parameter selection for a tissue engineering scaffold target application is discussed, considering the varying structural properties of the native extracellular matrix of the tissue of interest.

No abstract