DuPont and environmental group Environmental Defense on Thursday issued a series of guidelines designed to help companies to assess risks when they design and manufacturing commercial nanotechnolgy materials.

The “Nano Risk Framework” creates a six-step process to help companies identify, assess and manage potential risks—and decide whether it’s safe to move on to the next phase in the development of a new product.

“There is really no guidance out there that companies can look for to actually address these issues,” said Scott Walsh, project manager at Environmental Defense.

The tailored size, shape and surface chemistry that give nano-particles their sought for properties also make them potentially dangerous. There is not enough understanding of how toxic some of these materials are and how they interact with the human body.

Government agencies are looking at the question but so far there are no regulation specifically targeted towards nano-particles. Berkeley, California is the only city that requires companies manufacturing nano-sized particles to report their activities (see The Wild, Wild, Nano West).

According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, there are already 475 consumer products made with nanotechnology, including stain- and wrinkle-resistant clothing and glare-free sunglasses.

“But in a lot of the cases, information on how these products have been assessed for their safety is not publicly available,” Mr. Walsh said.

The framework is supposed to help companies not only to assess risks during the whole life-cycle of the product, but also to make the information available to people outside the company.

Pankaj Dhingra, CEO, of Nanostellar, a startup developing nano-engineered metal catalysts, based in Redwood City, California, said DuPont’s framework has helped his company better understand the risks associated with its products both to employees and the public.