Geophysical detection of microplastics in soils

Plastics pollution is a global environmental hazard with a wide range of impacts on wildlife, biodiversity, food webs, ecosystem
services and human wellbeing. Of particular concern are microplastics (including nanoplastics) because their small sizes enhance
their long-range transport, their uptake by biota and the capacity to sorb and leach contaminants. The proposed project will focus
on the fate of microplastics in soils. Agricultural soils treated with biosolids have been shown to contain large amounts of
microplastics, yet how these microplastics move through the soil environment is hardly known. We will apply a novel, and likely
game-changing, approach to the detection and real-time monitoring of microplastics in the soil environment, by applying a noninvasive
geophysical remote sensing technique known as Spectral Induced Polarization (SIP). While SIP has been used to follow
the transport of engineered nanomaterials through soils, it has never been applied to microplastics. In the proposed project we will
acquire and analyze SIP signatures associated with the movement and immobilization of microplastics in soil column experiments.
The results will lay the groundwork for the systematic investigation of the interactions between microplastics and the abiotic and
biotic components of soils.

Faculty Supervisor:

Philippe Van Cappellen;Fereidoun Reza Nezhad

Student:

Partner:

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: