The National Library of Medicine’s Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) has added its first set of nanomaterial records to TOXNET, the toxicology data network. Nanotechnology is the study of matter on an atomic and molecular scale, structures 100 nanometers or smaller. A nanometer (nm) is one billionth of a meter.

Like other HSDB records, the nanomaterial records are peer-reviewed and contain information on toxicity, manufacturing and use, chemical and physical properties, environmental fate and exposure, and more.

TOXNET comprises a collection of toxicology and environmental health databases that includes the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, TOXLINE (containing references to the world’s toxicology literature), ChemIDplus (a chemical dictionary and structure database) and TOXMAP, which maps the locations and amounts of certain toxic chemicals released into the environment.