On the Categorization of Nanomaterials

In this paper, categorization of nanomaterials is examined from four perspectives; context, criteria for success, ensuring measurements are relevant, and the life cycle of a nanomaterial. For each perspective, its relevance to categorization is discussed as well as the difficulties it presents. For example, while the context of assessing potential harm to living things and the environment is clearly important, other contexts are often needed and require different categorization schemes. Understanding what success means for a categorization scheme, within its target context, is critical to making sure a categorization is actually useful. The complexity of nanomaterials and their interactions makes generating and collecting the required data and metadata to support categorization a challenge. Finally, the transformation a nanomaterial undergoes through its lifetime, including the testing process, present additional challenges to accurate categorization. How these factors impact development of usable categorization schemes is analyzed.