The Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) has been adopted, which aims to tackle the challenge of producing and using chemicals to address societal needs while respecting the planetary boundaries and safeguarding people and ecosystems, by dealing with pollution from all sources. Bearing in mind the pressing need to develop new methods or improve current ones, to support the improvement of safety and sustainability assessments of chemicals, the project “Implementing innovative methods for safety and sustainability assessments of chemicals and materials particularly at nano level in the European Union (CheMatSustain)” will not only study the quantum effects from a fundamental point-of-view (by DFT means) but also by identifying and measuring them through experimental techniques (high-resolution analysis, XPS and UPS), and determining the specific molecular recognition through their interaction with the environment, which is a quantum mechanical effect (in-vitro, microfluidic in-vitro, and in-vivo models and proteomics and transcriptomics and methods).
The obtained information on these descriptors will then be integrated for the development of novel in silico models for prediction (eco)toxicity properties of advanced materials. Finally, in-silico model prediction results will be combined to develop a new methodology for the complementary use of Risk Assessment and LCA to improve criteria for the Safe&Sustainable by Design implementation framework. The work has been divided in eight work packages and the duration of the project is 48 months.
The consortium of 10 scientific partners from 7 EU countries, in collaboration with 1 UK Associate Partner is involved. The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is coordinating the project.