The International Organization for Standardization recently formed a technical committee that will develop standards for the nanotechnology industry. The first meeting of ISO/TC 229 was held in Britain in November. The British Standards Institution provides the chair and secretariat of the new committee, with support from the U.K.’s Department of Trade and Industry. According to the committee’s scope, it’ll produce standards for the classification, terminology and nomenclature, basic metrology, calibration and certification, and environmental issues related to nanotechnology. It’ll also develop standardized tests that’ll examine the physical, chemical, structural and biological properties of materials or devices critically dependent on one or more dimension of less than 100 nm.

The inaugural meeting was attended by 22 delegations from all over the world, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Israel, Italy, Republic of Korea, and the United States.

For more information, visit www.iso.org.

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