Human health risks of exposure to carbon nanotubes: keeping pace with innnovation

The worldwide production of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has increased substantially in the last decade as the material offer society new opportunities for effectively stronger, lighter, better electrically conductive, and more flexible products. However, concerns have been raised about (occupational) health risks due to CNT exposure, but...

Personal exposure to UFP in different micro-environments and time of day

Particulate matter exposure may cause adverse health effects. Although ultrafine particulate matter (UFP) is hypothesised to be particularly health relevant, the number of studies into personal UFP exposure is limited. Aim To increase insight where and when most UFP exposure occurs, in terms of exposure levels and peaks in microenvironments,...

WHO environmental noise guidelines for the European Region - What is new? 2. New evidence on health effects from environmental noise and implications for research

The Guidelines include systematic reviews of the scientific evidence of the critical health effects of environmental noise: effects on sleep, annoyance, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular diseases, hearing impairment and tinnitus. Other potential health outcomes with less evidence are also systematically reviewed, but have less impact on the...

Life-cycle assessment framework for indoor emissions of synthetic nanoparticles

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a well-established method to evaluate impacts of chemicals on the environment and human health along the lifespan of products. However, the increasingly produced and applied nanomaterials (defined as one dimension

Urban air quality: The challenge of traffic non-exhaust emissions

About 400,000 premature adult deaths attributable to air pollution occur each year in the European Region. Road transport emissions account for a significant share of this burden. While important technological improvements have been made for reducing particulate matter (PM) emissions from motor exhausts, no actions are currently in place to...

Potential Impact of Latest Proposals for New European Vehicle Noise Limits

Noise emission of new road vehicles is regulated by European Directives [1] and subsequent amendments. Proposals for tighter noise emission limits for road vehicles made by the European Commission in 2011 [2] have been adopted in modified form by the European Parliament in 2013 [3]. In the VENOLIVA study on the effects of new vehicle noise...

In vitro exposure of human lung cells to emissions of several indoor air sources created in a climate chamber

In the last decade, studies on indoor air pollution suggest a link between exposure to indoor particulate matter and compounds, in particular ultrafine particles and secondary organic aerosols, and several health effects. The mechanisms of how those complex mixtures relate to health effects are still not fully understood. In vitro testing, i.e.,...

SAKAMATA: Managing the risk of sonar sound on marine mammals

SAKAMATA is a risk assessment and mitigation tool developed by TNO and used by the Royal Netherlands Navy. It supports the user in planning and carrying out active sonar operations in an environmentally responsible way. Recently, a new version has been developed, which makes it possible to quantify the number of marine mammals affected, taking...

Limitations and information needs for engineered nanomaterialspecific exposure estimation and scenarios: Recommendations for improved reporting practices

The aim of this paper is to describe the process and challenges in building exposure scenarios for engineered nanomaterials (ENM), using an exposure scenario format similar to that used for the European Chemicals regulation (REACH). Over 60 exposure scenarios were developed based on information from publicly available sources (literature, books,...

Practical ranges of loudness levels of various types of environmental noise, including traffic noise, aircraft noise, and industrial noise

In environmental noise control one commonly employs the A-weighted sound level as an approximate measure of the effect of noise on people. A measure that is more closely related to direct human perception of noise is the loudness level. At constant A-weighted sound level, the loudness level of a noise signal varies considerably with the shape of...

Nanotechnologies, engineered nanomaterials and occupational health and safety - A review

The significance of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) and nanotechnologies grows rapidly. Nanotechnology applications may have a positive marked impact on many aspects of on human every day life, for example by providing means for the production of clean energy and pure drinking water. Hundreds of consumer nano-based products are already on the...

Variability in endotoxin exposure levels and consequences for exposure assessment

Objectives: Workers in many industries are exposed to endotoxins, which may cause adverse health effects. In exposure assessment, information about exposure variability is essential. However, variability in exposure has rarely been investigated for biological agents and more specifically for endotoxin. Therefore, variance components and...

Personal exposure to ultrafine particles in the workplace: Exploring sampling techniques and strategies

Recently, toxicological and epidemiological studies on health effects related to particle exposure suggest that 'ultrafine particles' (particles with an aerodynamic diameter of <100 nm) may cause severe health effects after inhalation. Although the toxicological mechanisms for these effects have not yet been explained, it is apparent that...

A specialist toxicity database (TRACE) is more effective than its larger, commercially available counterparts

The retrieval precision and recall of a specialist bibliographic toxicity database (TRACE) and a range of widely available bibliographic databases used to identify toxicity papers were compared. The analysis indicated that the larger size and resources of the major bibliographic databases did not, for a series of test queries, assure superior...