What is ACCORDs
“Materials, especially advanced materials, are the backbone and source of prosperity of an industrial society”
materials 2030 Manifesto
The continued development of nano-, advanced, smart materials and their commercial success require that feasible and cost-effective strategies are developed that include safe and sustainable-by-design (SSbD) production, effective assessments of risk along life cycle of a product, and the development of appropriate regulatory guidelines.
For example, Europe has successfully brought graphene innovation out of the lab and into commercial products, which include flexible electronics, printed electronics, 5G mobile technologies, batteries, medical applications, filtration, and applications for the aerospace and automotive industries. This has led to increased human and environmental exposures as a result of the use of these materials. But further commercialisation may be hindered by missing standardised methods for characterisation and risk assessment of this promising class of materials.
The development of tools to ensure the safe and sustainable use of 2D nanomaterials is therefore a requirement for their further successful commercialisation. In this context, the motivation of the ACCORDs project is to develop a holistic, reliable, and practical characterization framework that correlates material characterisation methods to the toxicity of 2D materials and thus develop predictive strategies to ensure their safe and sustainable use and support commercialisation of graphene-containing products.
ACCORDs pathway for developing a material characterization methodology to guide 2D producers and downstream users during product development.
The general objective of ACCORDs is to develop a reliable and practical imaging-based characterization framework for the holistic correlative assessment of 2D nanomaterials belonging to Graphene Family Materials (GFMs), as produced and in complex environmental matrices, to support their safe and sustainable utilisation, and therefore to contribute to destination, Digital and emerging technologies for competitiveness and fit for the Green Deal, by addressing a topic: “Graphene: Europe in the lead.” These tools will support decisions regarding health and environmental safety based on quantitative information that considers the full product / material life cycle and will improve globally competitive and resilient industries. ACCORDs outcomes will be aligned with the EU Commission’s new Standardisation Strategy that aims to strengthen the EU’s global competitiveness as well as expand business opportunities.
Outline of the method selection tiered approach of ACCORDs that is based on the type of material and matrix.
2D material
GFM in different matrices and along life cycle. (WP1, WP3)
ACCORDs list of methods
Table 1: List of methods for physicochemical characterization
Table 2: List of biological methods for hazard identification (WP2)
Method selection
Selected methods for correlative imaging based GFM characterization
2D material characterization
Correlative imaging-based characterization of 2D materials.
