NanoFood

The NanoFood project aims to develop a European Technical Specification (CEN/TS) to propose a standardized approach for (i) detecting the presence of nanoparticles associated with various additives commonly used in the food industry (TiO2, Iron Oxides, SiO2) in food products of varying complexity, and (ii) determining their number size distribution.

The proposed analytical approach combines the sp ICP-MS technique and electron microscopy coupled with chemical detection (EDX). A particular effort is being made to propose and validate sample preparation methodologies by inter-laboratory comparison, enabling representative extraction of additives from the food matrices selected. This project, launched at the end of 2021 for a period of 4 years as part of the Comité Technique 352 Nanotechnologies du CEN (European standardization) under an EC Mandate, is coordinated by LNE with contributions from control and expert laboratories in several Member States (SCL - France, Sciensano - Belgium, DTU - Denmark, WFSR - Netherlands, HSE - Northern Ireland).