Tag Archives: Denis Koltsov

A standard for determining what it means to be graphene

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How do you know if your ‘graphene’ light bulb has any graphene in it? How do you know if your orange juice is 100% orange juice? The answer to those questions is that you don’t. So, you must hope there are standards and regulations governing the answers. You must also hope that there are incentives (fines and/or jail time) for obeying those regulations.

In a March 15, 2021 news item on Nanowerk, you’ll find an announcement from the UK’s National Physical Laboratory about an international standard for graphene (Note: A link has been removed),

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK in collaboration with international partners, have developed an ISO/IEC [International Standards Organization/International Electrotechnical Commission] standard, ISO/TS 21356-1:2021, for measuring the structural properties of graphene, typically sold as powders or in a liquid dispersion. The ISO/IEC standard allows the supply chain to answer the question ‘what is my material?’ and is based on methods developed with The University of Manchester in the NPL Good Practice Guide 145.

A March ??, 2021 NPL press release, which originated the news item, provides more details,

Over the last few years, graphene, a 2D material with many exciting properties and just one atom thick, has moved from the laboratory into real-world products such as cars and smartphones. However, there is still a barrier affecting the rate of its commercialisation, namely, understanding the true properties of the material. There is not just one type of material, but many, each with different properties that need matching to the many different applications where graphene can provide an improvement.

With hundreds of companies across the globe selling different materials labelled as ‘graphene’, and manufacturing it in different ways, end users who want to improve their products by incorporating few-layer graphene flakes are unable to compare and subsequently select the right material for their product.

Through standardised methods to enable the reliable and repeatable measurement of properties, such as the lateral flake size, flake thickness, level of disorder and specific surface area, industry will be able to compare the many materials available and instil trust in the supply chain.  In conjunction with the international ISO/IEC terminology standard led by NPL, ISO/TS 80004-13:2017, it will be possible for commercially available material to be correctly measured and labelled as graphene, few-layer graphene or graphite.

As the UK’s National Metrology Institute, NPL has been developing and standardising the required metrologically-robust methods for the measurement of graphene and related 2D materials to enable industry to use these materials and realise novel and improved products across many application areas.

The continuation of the NPL-led standardisation work within ISO TC229 (nanotechnologies) will allow the chemical properties of graphene related 2D materials to be determined, as well as the structural properties for different forms of graphene material, such as CVD-grown graphene. This truly international effort to standardise the framework of measurements for graphene is described in more detail in Nature Reviews Physics, including further technical discussion on the new ISO graphene measurement standard.

Dr Andrew J Pollard, Science Area Leader at NPL said: “It is exciting to see this new measurement standard now available for the growing graphene industry worldwide. Based on rigorous metrological research, this standard will allow companies to confidently compare technical datasheets for the first time and is the first step towards verified quality control methods.”

Dr Charles Clifford, Senior Research Scientist at NPL said: “It is fantastic to see this international standard published after several years of development.  To reach international consensus especially across the 37 member countries of ISO TC229 (nanotechnologies) is a testament both to the global interest in graphene and the importance of international cooperation.”

James Baker, CEO of Graphene@Manchester said: “Standardisation is crucial for the commercialisation of graphene in many different applications such as construction, water filtration, energy storage and aerospace. Through this international measurement standard, companies in the UK and beyond will be able to accelerate the uptake of this 21st Century material, now entering many significant markets.”

Here are links to the new standard ISO/TS 21356-1:2021 (Nanotechnologies — Structural characterization of graphene — Part 1: Graphene from powders and dispersions} and the NPL/University of Manchester’s 2017 edition of the Good Practice Guide.

Here’s a second link to the article along with a citation,

The importance of international standards for the graphene community by Charles A. Clifford, Erlon H. Martins Ferreira, Toshiyuki Fujimoto, Jan Herrmann, Angela R. Hight Walker, Denis Koltsov, Christian Punckt, Lingling Ren, Gregory J. Smallwood & Andrew J. Pollard. Nature Reviews Physics (2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00278-6 Published 15 March 2021

This paper is behind a paywall.

Webinar featuring REACH and JRC perspectives on the European Union’s definition of nanomaterials

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NanoSight is once more hosting a webinar on the European Union’s definition of nanomaterials (the first nanomaterials definitiion webinar was mentioned in my March 6, 2012 posting).  Here’s more about their latest nanomaterials definition webinar,  from NanoSight’s webinar registration page,

Update on the EU Nanomaterials Definition: Impact of Recent EU and JRC [European Commission’s Joint Research Centre] Publications

Wednesday, 14th November 2012
Live at 15:00 GMT (16:00 CET, 07:00 PST, 10:00 EST)
Repeated Live at 17:00 GMT (18:00 CET, 09:00 PST, 12:00 EST)

…

Dr Denis Koltsov is an international nanotechnology legislation and control expert. He is Director and Principal Consultant at BREC Solutions offering technology consulting services. He also holds a lectureship in the Department of Engineering at Lancaster University.
Dr Matteo Della Valle is from the REACH Centre, an organization that provides the highest quality advice on the many regulatory, technical and commercial aspects of REACh and other chemical regulations.

…

During the 30 minute interactive presentations, the speakers will

  • Review the JRC methods document and dicuss the key conclusions and the challenges presented
  • Outline the EU’s Second Regulatory Review and forthcoming legislation where it will have most impact with particular emphasis on the REACh [European Community’s (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of CHemicals] registration process
  • Report on the USA perspective concerning regulation of nanomaterials. This reporting will include matters tabled as SENN2012 – International Congress on Safety of Engineered Nanoparticles and Nanotechnologies, at the end of this month in Helsinki

As part of this fully interactive presentation you will be able to put your question to both myself and Denis, so please take advantage of this opportunity to clarify any queries you may have.

H/T to Azonano’s Nov. 2, 2012 news item.

Webinar on 2011 European nanomaterials definition

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Weds., March 21, 2012  at 1330 GMT (6:30 am PST), Dr Denis Koltsov will lead part one of a webinar on the European nanomaterials definition, which will be hosted by the company, NanoSight. According to the March 6, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

NanoSight will host a webinar to look at the implications of this definition and how as a company with unique multi-parameter nanoparticle analysis is able to address these freshly defined characterization challenges. [sic]

The invited speaker is Dr Denis Koltsov, a leading international expert in nanotechnology legislation and control. Dr Koltsov serves on several UK governmental strategy committees as well as expert committees at BSI/ISO/CEN/OECD WPN and the Nanotechnologies Industries Association (NIA). He has conducted a number of industry-led consultations in the nanotechnology sector and reported to the relevant regulatory authorities. He operates BREC Solutions, a consultancy company in the field of nanotechnology innovation. Key to this is to act as an information source of nanotechnology regulation and standardisation. In his talk, he will examine the definition in detail and provide a thorough understanding of the document. Dr Koltsov will outline his views on the likely speed and scope of legislation.

Part two of the webinar at 1500 GMT (8 am PST) will feature (from the NanoSight webinar registration page),

NanoSight will present a practical draft solution to address a characterisation requirement of this definition, requiring as it does particle counting 10 to 100nm a combination of NTA and EM is proposed.

Here’s a little more about UK-based NanoSight (from the home page),

NanoSight visualizes, measures and characterizes virtually all nanoparticles. Particle size, concentration, aggregation and zeta potential can all be analyzed while a fluorescence mode provides speciation of labeled particles. NanoSight provides real time monitoring of the subtle changes in the characteristics of particle populations with all of these analyses uniquely confirmed by visual validation.

I also found some additional information about Denis Koltsov (from Koltsov’s webpage on  BREC Solutions website),

Born in Moscow (1976), Denis grew up in Paris. He speaks 3 languages. Denis graduated from Cambridge University in 1998 (BA and MSci in Physics) and followed up his research interests in Nanotechnology to graduate from Cambridge in 2002 with a PhD in Engineering. His constant interest for real-world problems brought him to Lancaster University where he worked up to 2009 as Lecturer in Nanotechnology. His consulting career started in 2005. In November 2007 Denis and his colleagues registered their own consulting company (BREC Solutions Limited). He is the Director and a Principal Consultant in BREC Solutions Limited.

I have some additional information about the European definition for nanomaterials in these postings, Nanomaterials definition for Europe, European nanomaterials definition not good enough, and  The French and others weigh in on the European nanomaterials definition (included here).