摘要：Nanotechnology has been exponentially developed in the last years bringing promises to create new and better materials.However, these new technologies can expose workers to unknown risk factors while they are producing, processing and handling nanomaterials (NM).With the rapid growth of nanotechnology based products, researchers, manufacturers, regulators and consumers are increasingly concerned about potential impacts that these products could have.In order to prevent potential risks associated to NM, the related legal framework should be firstly known.Considering these features, this work is aimed at identifying applicable legislation to NM and its adequacy, as well as at analysing the risk assessment of polymer nano and submicro composites during their production in a laboratory context.In order to determine how to prevent/control the risks associated with the NM, the existent legal framework was analysed.No specific legislation for NM was found, but some related standard were identified.The risk assessment was based on qualitative ISPESL and EPFL methods.These methods had convergent on medium risk results, so some precautionary/prevention measures should be implemented.The outputs of this work highlight that the current knowledge about the NM is insufficient; thus, more research work will be need to fill the existing gaps.
