Measurement and Standards

Measurement and characterisation (metrology)

The development of nanotechnologies cannot advance without the ability to measure and characterise nanoscale materials, objects and devices in an accurate, reliable and repeatable way.  Such measurement and characterisation must take account of the shape, size, physical, chemical and biological properties of nanoscale materials.

The UK is in the forefront of developing the necessary techniques and methods, with the Government funding a large programme of work through the National Measurement System.

A key early success was the establishment at the National Physical Laboratory of a facility focussed on the detection and measurement of airborne nanoparticles.  This led to the launch of the world’s first accredited calibration service for airborne nanoparticle concentration. This service underpins nanoparticle number concentration measurements in the UK for both environmental and workplace monitoring and supports industrial innovation in important areas such as engine and vehicle development where reductions in particle emissions are essential to compliance with new regulations.

Current airborne particulate research is tackling fundamental issues such as -

• Detection of engineered nanoparticles against background levels of naturally occurring nanoparticles; and

• Measurement of important characteristics of airborne nanoparticles such as size and surface area.

Detecting nanoparticles in water, sediment, soils and human and animal tissue is much more difficult and the reproducible determination of even simple characteristics such as the size distribution of nanoparticles is a substantial challenge.  Currently, work is underway to fully understand the measurement issues that need to be resolved and to start to develop the underpinning metrology.

The UK is one of the leaders in international nanometrology having led the establishment of the ISO standards committee (TC229) for nanotechnologies as well as being engaged in many other activities. The biggest market opportunities for UK companies are overseas and much of today’s regulatory regime originates from Europe or from other international requirements.  As such, the UK is engaged in international activities to:

• Ensure that measurements made in the UK are accepted as equivalent to those made across the world, preventing barriers to trade;
• Defend UK interests in international arenas where measurement standards can be key to product acceptance or for regulatory compliance;
• Fulfil the UK’s commitments to international bodies and treaties;
• Work for the development of effective and proportionate environmental and health and safety regulations to protect the UK population and environment.

Support for innovation is one of the top drivers for the work of the National Measurement System.  Established links across many sectors of industry such as building products, catalysts, instrumentation, medical devices, packaging, pharmaceuticals and textiles are used to exchange knowledge to drive improvements in products and processes. Strong relationships with Universities, EPSRC and Technology Strategy Board are also important mechanisms for leveraging the results of academic research into practical applications.

The rapid adoption of nanotechnology in almost all industrial sectors presents enormous challenges for nanometrology in the UK due to:

• The need to support industry by:

1. Enabling innovation and enhancing value;
2. Underpinning effective quality and process control during manufacturing;
3. Shortening the product development time before market launch;

• The essential requirement to underpin development and implementation of an efficient and effective regulatory regime for:
  1. Environmental monitoring;
  2. Workplace Health and Safety;
  3. Toxicological testing;
  4. Consumer and product safety.

Meeting the nanometrology challenge, given the urgent need for answers particularly on the environmental, health and safety issues, is a major issue. Given the very limited resources available, expertise and research from across the UK and beyond is being utilised to assist but there remains an urgent requirement for more support to develop the measurement infrastructure and reference materials in this area.

Standards

In a global market, it is important that there is a common understanding of what is meant by nanotechnologies and associated terms and agreement on how nanoscale materials should be measured, described and evaluated for their health and environmental impacts.  To this end, the UK is playing a leading role in international standardisation activities.

Standards are not part of the regulatory framework but can and do support regulation.  Standards apply to virtually every aspect of our lives, from the highly innovative such as internet protocols to the more mundane such as shoe sizes.  National and international trade depends on standards.  Although voluntary, they are used because they provide a reliable and validated basis for best practice.

Early participation in standards-making allows countries and organisations to help create and shape markets by providing the bench-mark for others, and can provide valuable technical and business intelligence.  The early development of standards is particularly important in technically challenging, strategically and globally important areas such as nanotechnologies.

The UK was the first country to establish a national standards committee on nanotechnologies, in June 2004 and has published 11 standards.  The UK has also secured the secretariats and chairmanships of technical committees in both the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN).

This work has led to a number of internationally reviewed standards for nanotechnologies, covering areas such as nanoparticle terminology and guides to safe handling and disposal, and labelling.  This initial stage of standards work is establishing important international agreements that give confidence that for example, how nanoparticles are described and labelled will be identical across the world. This is important in areas such as the safety of product shipments, handling and manufacturing of products. Future work will build on these foundations to establish standards that will underpin workplace and environmental safety and develop measurement standards for the physical and chemical characteristics of the many different classes of nanoparticles.

Your views

We would welcome your views on how the UK can development and exploit excellence in measurement and standards of nanotechnologies.  The SWOT analysis below summarises Government understanding, from discussion with stakeholders, of the major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing the UK in this area. This (and the questions to the right hand side) is intended to help you think about the issues and steer future actions and shape the UK nano environment.