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: 2127395
• 负责人: Valier Galy
• 金额: $ 3.55万
• 依托单位: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• 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=2127395&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.

就像生命和生命留下的天然有机材料一样，塑料在使用中仍然是一种神奇的材料，促进了技术进步，但是，一旦被丢弃，它们的耐用性就会使塑料堆积起来。该项目将从公海收集样本并测量天然有机碳和塑料碳的浓度，该团队努力发现在海洋表面的某些地方会有同样多甚至更多的塑料碳。如果团队是天然有机碳。正确的，这将改变他们和其他海洋科学家对海洋样本中观察到的碳特征的解释，并表明我们的表面海洋已经因塑料污染而发生了根本性的变化。塑料是碳基聚合物，是碳循环数据的新兴组成部分。海洋中的塑料和有机碳是由不同的科学界使用不同的方法收集的，比较这两个群体的数据表明，塑料碳现在可能与海洋表面的生物有机碳浓度相媲美。 (EAGER) 项目中，该团队将在大西洋 BATS/Hydrostation“S”对相同样本进行跨学科研究，结合塑料碳和有机碳的分析，以检验塑料碳现在是一种塑料碳的假设。该项目将提供塑料-碳分析的新方法，包括尺寸小至 0.2 微米的纳米塑料，并揭示海洋科学家现在是否需要考虑塑料-碳作为有机碳的作用。分析物该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。