Addressing the Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) issues surrounding nanotechnology has become critical for the future development of nanotechnologies across a number of application fields.
But in order to address these issues it is necessary to set standards for nomenclature, experimentation and microscopy, just to name a few.
This week out in Seattle, WA, a meeting of the ISO TC 229 (nanotechnologies) group is on going and its aim is to establish standards in these areas.
This ISO group is nothing new, it's been around a while. So to be honest, I am not sure where this meeting stands in its progress towards developing standards.
But we do have a new insight into the process as Skip Rung, President and Executive Director of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), is sending back dispatches from the meetings to Nanotech-Now.
Based on his first dispatch I expect that it will be some time before we have anything approaching a comprehensive set of standards for nanotechnologies. But I'll be reading the posts, just in case.
Dexter Johnson is a contributing editor at IEEE Spectrum, with a focus on nanotechnology.
