Nanomaterials are very diverse groups of materials with greatly varying properties. Nowadays, an increasing number of them are entering the market in every day products spanning from healthcare and leisure to electronics, cosmetics and foodstuff. However, the novelty and variety in properties and forms of nanomaterials makes the elaboration of a well-founded and robust legislative framework to ensure safe development of nano-enabled products particularly challenging.

At the heart of the challenge lies the difficulty in the reliable and reproducible characterisation of nanomaterials given their extreme diversity and dynamic nature, particularly in complex conditions, such as within different biological, environmental and technological compartments.

To resolve this, ACEnano project will bring together an impressive and substantial partnership of 26 experts from research and industry who will work together during the next four years to introduce confidence, adaptability and clarity into nanomaterial risk assessment by developing a widely implementable and robust tiered approach to nanomaterial physicochemical characterisation that will simplify and facilitate contextual (hazard or exposure) description and its transcription into a reliable nanomaterials grouping framework.