Project properties

Title Innovation in microplastic measurement: Method improvement and validation
Group Soil Physics and Land Management group
Project type thesis
Credits 24-39
Supervisor(s) Nicolas Beriot, Esperanza Huerta Lwanga
Examiner(s) Violette Geissen
Contact info nicolas.beriot@wur.nl
Begin date 2021/05/25
End date
Description Introduction
Microplastic particles are found in all environments. The detection of microplastics in a diversity of substrates is needed to understand the transport processes from one environment to another. Quantification and identification methods exist but there recovery is often presented for a specific substrate or a specific plastic type while there is a big diversity of substrate and plastic types that are analysed. Moreover, most quantification and identification methods require the plastic particles to be extracted from the substrate. However plastic particles share many properties with organic matter particles so current extraction methods are limited by the organic matter content in the sample.

Research questions
• What is the recovery of the microplastics extraction and analysis method?
• Is this recovery different for different plastic particles and different soil types?
• How to improve the method to analyse substrates with higher organic matter contents?

What is expected from the student (type of research)
• Inventory of methods to reduce the organic matter content in samples and extract microplastics
• Plastic particles recovery tests for different plastic types, soil types and extraction procedures
Used skills
Requirements