Nanotechnology is having a large impact in many industrial sectors and the use of nanoparticles is continuously increasing in many fields, from paints, automotive components, consumer products such as cosmetic sunscreens and anti-odorant up to biology and medicine. For a proper assessment of the fate and potential safety risks associated with nanoparticles it is thus necessary to be able to detect, quantify, and identify them. This task is rendered even more difficult by the sheer variety of complex matrices in which Engineered Nanoparticles (ENPs) are embedded ranging from e.g. food, to clothing, and to cosmetic products. Due to their ever increasing use in these different applications, ENPs also need to be detected downstream in matrices as different as waste water sludge, biological systems and soils.

SMART-NANO aims to develop an innovative, practically implementable and cost-effective technology platform based on ready-to-use, application-specific cartridges for the hyper-sensitive detection, identification, and quantification of engineered nanoparticles in complex matrices such as biological systems, consumer products, food, the environment and in situ in biota.  Thus, the SMART-NANO strategy is to provide a core platform with application-specific cartridges and tested protocols for the most requested measurements and easy to deploy modules for specific applications that require either hypersensitive detection and measurement or isolation from complex matrices of nanoparticles.