JRC introduces SMART-NANO project to quantify nanoparticles in cosmetics

European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre’s (JRC) SMART-NANO is a new SME-focused research project, which will help develop an innovative, cost-effective technology platform to measure engineered nanoparticles in a range of cosmetic and other consumer products.

The four year project under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) of the EU is backed by the €3.5m funding, the agency said.

JRC said the new project will attempt to generate cost-effective technology that can ‘from sample-to-result’ separate, detect and quantify nanoparticles in a variety of complex matrices, such as cosmetics and other consumer products.

The project outcome will be a miniaturised, modular, cartridge-based technology platform that will integrate all analytical steps needed for separation, detection, and quantification of engineered nanoparticles.

The platform is said to offer the needed flexibility to target new applications in the field of nanotechnology with only minimal optimisation required.

According to JRC, this new research and development brings in three non-profit and five SME partners from eight countries and includes Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (Switzerland, Coordinator), JRC (Institute for Health and Consumer Protection), FeyeCon (Netherlands), Postnova Analytics (Germany), Avid Nano (United Kingdom), AHAVA (Israel), Ruder Boškovic Institute (Croatia), and ABICH (Italy).

JRC added that it will integrate all the different modules into the final measurement platform, and l benchmark its performances on measuring engineered nanoparticles in different products.