• Projektnummer : F 2524
• Projektdurchführung : Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status : Abgeschlossenes Projekt

Projektbeschreibung :

The use of nano-sized fibre materials, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and inorganic nanofibres, is of increasing technological importance. To ensure the safety of employees who are exposed to critical fibre dusts from these materials in the workplace, an EU-wide standardised measurement method is required to reliably record the concentration of critical nanofibres in the breathing air. The new Technical Specification (TS) was developed for this purpose as part of this project:

CEN/TS 18117:2025 - "Workplace exposure - Detection and characterisation of airborne NOAA using electron microscopy - Rules for sampling and analysis".

The standardisation was based on the identification of suitable air sampling systems and the development and validation of specific counting rules for electron microscopy.

Using these Technical Specification, it is possible to analyse nano-objects and their agglomerates and aggre-gates in the complex dusts found in workplaces and to differentiate between specific object classes, in particular critical fibres. In future, the analytical methods will make it possible to determine the workplace concentration of even nanoscale fibres with the precision required for monitoring occupational exposure limits.

The Technical Specification was published by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) on 12 February 2025.