From small to clever: What does the future hold for the safety and sustainability of advanced materials?

The world expects solutions to a multitude of technological challenges, from curing disease to mitigating climate change, from increasingly more clever or advanced materials. But how do we address the safety of ever more novel substances and what have we learned from the last 15 years of nanosafety research? In this opinion letter, we1 share our views on how to develop a framework for these new families of materials, that capitalizes on the nanosafety progress achieved to date, and how to ensure the wider nanoscience community could play a part in this new challenge. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This opinion letter discusses the development of a safety framework for new materials and the utilization of nanosafety progress, aiming to engage the wider nanoscience community in addressing these challenges.