Projects
Ongoing Projects
- Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC)
- Safe and Sustainable by Design: Integrated Approaches for Impact Assessment of Advanced Materials (SUNRISE)
- Combination therapy for the treatment of metastatic melanoma using magnetic nanoparticles (MELOMANES)
- Next generation bioactive nanocoatings (NOVA)
- Advanced Characterisation Methodologies to assess and predict the Health and Environmental Risks of Advanced Materials (MACRAME)
- Exploring wooden materials in hybrid printed electronics: a holistic approach towards functional electronics with net zero carbon emissions (Hypelignum)
- Developing an integrated framework for transitioning to a safe circular plastic economy: a use case study of Japan (CIRPLUS)
- Emission factor for micro- and nanoplastics (EMIFACT-NMP)
- Integration of research results from the ECO56-60 microplastics research cluster (CLUSTER-µP)
- Proteins for sustainable Future (Protein4SF)
- Swiss Center of Excellence on Net Zero Emissions (SCENE)
- Zero pollution of persistent, mobile substances (ZeroPM)
- Release of microplastics from textiles
- Textile Nachhaltigkeit (SUBITEX)
Completed projects
- IRISS
- SUNSHINE
- Nanoparticle exposure modeling
- Microplastic exposure modeling
- Microplastic risk assessment
- Nanoparticle risk assessment
- Safegraph
- Gov4Nano
- NanoinformaTIX
- TA Swiss
- ProMatLeben
- Circulartex
- Bio-based synthesic fibers
- BIORIMA
- GRACIOUS
- GREENSENSE
- GoNanoBioMat
- Sustainable-by-Design for Masks
- caLIBRAte
- POROUS4APP
- NanoFASE
- Release from nanotextiles
- Textile museum "Material Matters"
- NanoSafeTextiles
- SUN
- NanoMILE
- LICARA
- Nanoparticles in waste and landfills
- NanoCelluComp
- NanoHouse
- DANA
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Environmental Risk Assessment and Management Group (ERAM)
The ERAM group is pioneering methods and applications in environmental risk assessment of advanced materials (including engineered nanomaterials), CO2- and bio-based materials, plastics and chemicals and is developing approaches to implement the Safe and Sustainable by Design concept, enabling a comprehensive and early view of opportunities and risks of new materials and technologies.
Development and Application of Methods
- Environmental risk assessment
- Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD)
- Experimental work on release of materials
- Material and Substance Flow Analysis
- Risk/benefit assessment
- Probabilistic Assessment and Meta-Analysis
- Guidelines and Tools to support informed decision making
- Technology Assessment
- Early-Stage Screening and prospective LCA
Materials
- Advanced materials, inlcuding engineered nanomaterials and nanobiomaterials
- Microplastics and nanoplastics, including tire wear particles
- Plastics
- Bio-based materials and polymers
- Woody biomass
- Protein-based polymers
- Side-chain fluorinated polymers, fluoropolymers and perfluoropolyethers
- Smart materials/products
Application fields
- Textiles
- Medicine
- Electronics
- Consumer products
- Biosensors
- Construction
- Carbon capture and usage
Details on current and past projects can be found here.
Personal Homepages
Group August 2025. Bottom row from left: Akshat Sudheshwar, Nadia Malinverno, Merve Tunali, Bernd Nowack, Claudia Som, Stephanie Eitner, Fiorella Pitaro, Kealie Vogel; Top row: Yumeng Chen, Mauricio Ortiz Galvez, Jacopo Sorani, Nurshen Mutlu, Vicenc Pomar Portillo, Tim Börner, John Hader, Jimeng Wu, Huadong Xing, Yiwen Zhang, Danyang Jiang, Jaleesia Amos, Elias Zimmermann; not on photo: Emilee Severe, Hyunjoo Hong, Zhanyun Wang
Contact
Empa
Technology & Society Laboratory
Lerchenfeldstrasse 5
CH-9014 St. Gallen
Tel.: +41 58 765 76 92
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