Challenges in distinguishing between natural and engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) and the lack of historical records on ENM accidents have hampered attempts to estimate the accidental release and associated environmental impacts of ENMs. Building on knowledge from the nuclear power industry, we provide an assessment of the likelihood of accidental release rates of ENMs within the next 10 and 30 years. We evaluate risk predictive methodology and compare the results with empirical evidence, which enables us to propose modelling approaches to estimate accidental release risk probabilities. Results from two independent modelling approaches based on either assigning 0.5% of reported accidents to ENM-releasing accidents (M1) or based on an evaluation of expert opinions (M2) correlate well and predict severe accidental release of 7% (M1) in the next 10 years and of 10% and 20% for M2 and M1, respectively, in the next 30 years. We discuss the relevance of these results in a regulatory context.

区分天然和工程纳米材料 (ENM) 的挑战以及 ENM 事故历史记录的缺乏阻碍了评估 ENM 的意外释放和相关环境影响的尝试。基于核电行业的知识，我们评估了未来 10 年和 30 年内 ENM 意外释放率的可能性。我们评估风险预测方法并将结果与​​经验证据进行比较，这使我们能够提出建模方法来估计意外泄漏风险概率。基于分配 0 的两种独立建模方法的结果。5% 的报告事故与 ENM 释放事故 (M1) 或基于专家意见评估 (M2) 相关性很好，并预测未来 10 年 7% (M1) 的严重事故释放以及 10% 和 20%未来30年分别是M2和M1。我们讨论了这些结果在监管背景下的相关性。