The environmental behavior of Nanocarriers

The project considers nanocarriers as a case study for novel materials that pose challenges for chemical regulation and regulatory risk assessment. To this end, the project will conduct extensive research on existing and newly developed nanocarriers and their (potential) applications. On this basis, a systematic compilation will be prepared. From the overview thus obtained, exemplary nanocarriers are to be selected for further investigation which, with regard to their appearance or their application, are expected to pose particular challenges for environmental assessment. For these selected nanocarriers, test strategies are to be developed and implemented that will enable an investigation of their environmental behavior and the possible release of the transported active ingredient under environmentally relevant conditions. In this way, the influence of encapsulation on the change in the environmental behavior of active substances will be determined as an example and the implications for an appropriate evaluation of the environmental behavior in the context of risk assessment will be described in more detail.