As part of the European Green Deal, the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability seeks to minimize the harmful effects of chemicals and materials on both human health and the environment, while promoting their safer and more sustainable use. The ambition is to phase out the use of harmful substances and to substitute or minimise the use of substances of concern. To achieve these goals the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework has been developed that consists of (re-)design and assessment phases to enable comparison of chemicals across all their life cycle stages. Using the SSbD framework as a reference, the INTEGRANO project aims to establish a quantitative approach to assess the safety and sustainability of nanomaterials (NMs). NMs and their derived products are a promising class of materials with high potential and application across many industrial sectors but the assessment of their safety and sustainability is hampered by gaps in available data and deficits in collection methods. INTEGRANO will provide the methodology to fully assess NMs safety, sustainability and functionality in a quantitative manner and enable the application of the SSbD framework in their development. Through custom software the collected safety, sustainability and functionality data for the NMs under design will be evaluated using artificial intelligence to enable the human user to make informed design decisions based on comparable quantitative evidence. The INTEGRANO digital-supported design process minimises the quantity of experimental data required to be collected, dramatically reducing Research & Development effort and approval lead-time, increasing the sustainability and viability of the industrial uptake of nanotechnologies.
The INTEGRANO project will enable the SSbD of NMs and NEPs which translates into a faster commercialisation of valuable end-products. The INTEGRANO project directly addresses NMs which constitute 43% of all registered NEPs and which are manufactured by 3000 companies in 64 countries. INTEGRANO will spur industrial uptake of SSbD NEPs in the Automotive, Construction, Health, Textile, Cosmetics, Energy and Water treatment sectors in which more than 50% of such products are found. INTEGRANO will directly engage stakeholders by establishing a web-based SSbD community for sharing of data, methodologies and engagement to enhance the uptake and reach of the SSbD framework
