The worldwide market for nanotechnology-enabled products is expected to exceed $1 trillion a year by 2015, and nanotechnologies are already used in medicine, “green technology”’, and in more than 500 consumer products as varied as laptops, sunscreen, tennis rackets and socks.  To support the rapid progress of this broad enabling technology it is important that standards are implemented at an early stage in order to facilitate precision in knowledge transfer, public awareness and consumer confidence. 

The UK currently holds both the chair and secretariat of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) committee, TC/229 "Nanotechnologies", and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) committee, CEN/TC 352 "Nanotechnologies".

BSI British Standards will launch six standards in January dealing with nanotechnologies’ terminology and three guides which, together with the existing “PAS 71 – Vocabulary for nanoparticles”, will support:

• Safety testing, legislation and regulation;
• Worker, public and environmental safety ;
• Commercialisation and procurement;
• Patenting and Intellectual property rights; and
• Communication about the benefits, opportunities and potential problems associated with nanotechnologies.

If you would like to receive notification when the free downloads are available, please register at www.bsigroup.com/registernano