Setting the stage for debating the roles of risk assessment and life-cycle assessment of engineered nanomaterials

Guinée, Jeroen B.; Heijungs, Reinout; Vijver, Martina G.; Peijnenburg, Willie J.G.M.

doi:10.1038/nnano.2017.135

Cited by 87 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…• The focus of LCA on a functional unit means that the assessment of impacts must be aligned with an emitter or producer perspective (Fantke and Ernstoff 2018;Guin ee et al 2017). • In following the emitter perspective, ecotoxicity factors depend on substance emissions obtained from the inventory analysis phase of LCA.…”

Section: General Assessment Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward harmonizing ecotoxicity characterization in life cycle impact assessment

Fantke

Aurisano

Bare

et al. 2018

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

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Ecosystem quality is an important area of protection in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Chemical pollution has adverse impacts on ecosystems on a global scale. To improve methods for assessing ecosystem impacts, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme established a task force to evaluate the state-of-the-science in modeling chemical exposure of organisms and the resulting ecotoxicological effects for use in LCIA. The outcome of the task force work will be global guidance and harmonization by recommending changes to the existing practice of exposure and effect modeling in ecotoxicity characterization. These changes will reflect the current science and ensure the stability of recommended practice. Recommendations must work within the needs of LCIA in terms of 1) operating on information from any inventory reporting chemical emissions with limited spatiotemporal information, 2) applying best estimates rather than conservative assumptions to ensure unbiased comparison with results for other impact categories, and 3) yielding results that are additive across substances and life cycle stages and that will allow a quantitative expression of damage to the exposed ecosystem. We describe the current framework and discuss research questions identified in a roadmap. Primary research questions relate to the approach toward ecotoxicological effect assessment, the need to clarify the method's scope and interpretation of its results, the need to consider additional environmental compartments and impact pathways, and the relevance of effect metrics other than the currently applied geometric mean of toxicity effect data across species. Because they often dominate ecotoxicity results in LCIA, we give metals a special focus, including consideration of their possible essentiality and changes in environmental bioavailability. We conclude with a summary of key questions along with preliminary recommendations to address them as well as open questions that require additional research efforts. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:2955-2971. © 2018 SETAC.

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Section: General Assessment Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward harmonizing ecotoxicity characterization in life cycle impact assessment

Fantke

Aurisano

Bare

et al. 2018

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

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“…To address the environmental concerns related to nanomaterials and nano‐based technologies development, a holistic evaluation of their environmental performance over the entire nanoproduct's life cycle needs to be performed. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been suggested to be the key tool in such comprehensive assessments for nanotechnologies (Bauer et al., ; Franklin, ; Guineé, Heijungs, Vijver, & Peijnenburg, ; Klöpffer et al., ). The nanowire‐based solar cell technology assessed in this study is an emerging technology, which is under development at the lab scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies at the lab scale: The case of nanowire‐based solar cells

Pallas

Vijver

Peijnenburg

et al. 2019

J of Industrial Ecology

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Nanomaterials are expected to play an important role in the development of sustainable products. The use of nanomaterials in solar cells has the potential to increase their conversion efficiency. In this study, we performed a life cycle assessment (LCA) for an emerging nanowire‐based solar technology. Two lab‐scale manufacturing routes for the production of nanowire‐based solar cells have been compared—the direct growth of GaInP nanowires on silicon substrate and the growth of InP nanowires on native substrate, peel off, and transfer to silicon substrate. The analysis revealed critical raw materials and processes of the current lab‐scale manufacturing routes such as the use of trifluoromethane (CHF3), gold, and an InP wafer and a stamp, which are used and discarded. The environmental performance of the two production routes under different scenarios has been assessed. The scenarios include the use of an alternative process to reduce the gold requirements—electroplating instead of metallization, recovery of gold, and reuse of the InP wafer and the stamp. A number of suggestions, based on the LCA results—including minimization of the use of gold and further exploration for upscaling of the electroplating process, the increase in the lifetimes of the wafer and the stamp, and the use of fluorine‐free etching materials—have been communicated to the researchers in order to improve the environmental performance of the technology. Finally, the usefulness and limitations of lab‐scale LCA as a tool to guide the sustainable development of emerging technologies are discussed.

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“…Selecting single models and approaches for specific questions may be a bridge too far. All models rely on strong assumption and constraints, and as LCA outcomes are largely unverifiable (Guineé et al 2017; Yang and Heijungs 2018), claiming certain LCA modes or models to be superior cannot be supported by evidence, and this battle between schools is thus a dead-end in our view.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%