EAGER: Collaborative Research: Assessing the contribution of plastics to marine particulate organic carbon

EAGER：合作研究：评估塑料对海洋颗粒有机碳的贡献

• 批准号: 2127503
• 负责人: Kara Law
• 金额: $ 2.13万
• 依托单位: Sea Education Association
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2127503&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Collaborative; Research; Assessing; contribution

Like life and the natural organic material life leaves behind, plastics are carbon-based. In use, plastics remain a wonder material, facilitating technological advancement. However, once discarded, their durability allows plastics to accumulate. One place that plastics are accumulating is at the surface of the open ocean. This project will collect samples from the open ocean and measure both natural organic carbon and plastic-carbon concentrations. The team hypothesize that in some places at the surface ocean there will be as much or even more plastic-carbon than natural organic carbon. If the team are correct, this will change how they and other ocean scientists interpret the carbon signatures observed in ocean samples and indicate our surface oceans have been fundamentally changed by plastic pollution. Plastics are carbon-based polymers and an emergent component of the carbon-cycle. Data for plastics and organic carbon at sea are collected by different scientific communities, using different methods. Comparing data from these two communities suggests plastic-carbon may now rival concentrations of biogenic OC at the surface of the ocean. In this EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project, the team will conduct an interdisciplinary study combining analysis of plastic-carbon and organic carbon for the same samples. Doing so in the Atlantic Ocean at BATS/Hydrostation “S” will test the hypothesis that plastic-carbon is now a significant fraction of total organic carbon at the sea surface. The project will deliver new methods for plastic-carbon analysis, including for nanoplastics down to 0.2 microns in size, and reveal whether ocean scientists now need to consider the role of plastic-carbon as an analyte in their samples and as an active component of the biogeochemistry and ecology of the surface ocean.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

像生命和天然有机材料的生命一样，塑料也是基于碳的。在使用中，塑料仍然是一种奇迹材料，支持技术进步。但是，一旦丢弃，它们的耐用性就可以使塑料丙烯酸。塑料积聚的地方是在开阔的海洋表面。该项目将从公海收集样品，并测量天然有机碳和塑料碳浓度。该小组假设在地面海洋的某些地方，塑料碳比天然有机碳的塑料碳要大甚至更大。如果团队正确，这将改变他们和其他海洋科学家如何解释海洋样品中观察到的碳特征，并表明我们的地面海洋已经通过塑料污染从根本上改变了。塑料是碳基聚合物和碳循环的紧急组成部分。海上塑料和有机碳的数据由不同的科学界使用不同的方法收集。比较这两个群落的数据表明塑料碳现在可能在海洋表面有生物源性OC的浓度。在这项探索性研究（急切）项目的早期概念赠款中，该团队将进行一项跨学科研究，结合了相同样品的塑料碳和有机碳的分析。在蝙蝠/液压“ S”的大西洋中这样做将检验以下假设：塑料碳现在是海面总有机碳的很大一部分。该项目将提供用于塑料碳分析的新方法，包括纳米塑料的大小降低到0.2微米，并揭示海洋科学家现在是否需要考虑塑料碳作为样品中的分析物的作用，以及作为表面海洋的生物地球化学和生态学的积极成分，这些奖项通过评估NSF的智力统计范围来表现出众多的依据。 标准。