Environmental Laboratory 25
Sea, especially the Kara Gate area. The plastic concentration generally decreases from West to East and from the Central Arctic to the unpopulated Siberian coast.
Van Bavel: One of the big learnings is that we need more information. This is one of the fi rst analyses of this area. Weather conditions, season, and currents can all infl uence the data so we would like to have more information.
We have purchased two Spectrum Two instruments to be placed on cruise ships which will be visiting these areas. Our objective would be to use these cruise ships as a platform to expand our sampling. I’ll be installing one of the instruments on a cruise ship next week.
This additional information will be fed into the models that we are developing to provide us with a better view of the microplastic distribution and infl uxes in the region.
Q: What will be your next steps in this work? Floating particles are collected with a Neuston net.
In addition, there are expeditions organized which are “fl oating universities” where students from several universities go on a cruise to conduct scientifi c experiments. We were happy to show them how to collect samples for microplastics analysis which were then analyzed with the Spectrum Two. These universities included Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg Hydrometeorological University and Northeaster University.
Q: What type of work were the students involved with? A:
Pakhomova: The students and young scientists on-board were very interested in microplastics studies and asked how to do the sampling and analysis. The Spectrum Two is a very good device and easy to use. It works very well for microplastics. I taught several students how to use it and they helped us process our large number of samples – almost 130 samples with each sample having from 5 to 1000 microplastic particles.
The PerkinElmer solution is the gold standard at NIVA. We tested other devices and always compare them to the Spectrum Two.
Van Bavel: We can analyze the microplastics down to 500 microns, or half a millimeter, with the Spectrum Two. The other samples go to the lab, and we analyze them with the Spotlight
One of the fastest mercury analysers
400, micro FT-IR.
If you take the strict defi nition from 2 millimeters to 0.5, larger microplastics can be analyze on-board the ship which is a big achievement because that is a large portion of the microplastics. The real small particles we need to do in the lab because we need liquid nitrogen to cool down the Spotlight and that’s not available on research ships.
Q: What has been the results of your research thus far?
Yakushev: We have been able to determine that there are indeed microplastics present in the Arctic Ocean. The most polluted location that we have samples thus far is the Barents
Van Bavel: We must fi gure out what the biggest sources of microplastics are and if our data is reliable in terms of season, place, time, and weather conditions. We will continue working on site with the students to test a large number of samples and we will make a Spectrum Two available for the student from Russia to work with.
Pakhomova: Another existing problem in microplastics research is that different research groups utilize different methods which makes it diffi cult to compare results. We have been trying to harmonize methods and analysis techniques to allow for a comparison of results from different regions, seasons and weather conditions.
Van Bavel: We are leading a harmonization effort for which we have 15 or 18 European partners. Our collaboration with our Russian partners gives us the opportunity to introduce the same methods to them so that we will be able to reliably compare results and feed the data that they generate into the same models.
Author Contact Details John Martin, Segment Marketing Manager - Environmental • PerkinElmer
• Address: 68 Elm St., Hopkinton, MA, USA, 01748 • Tel: +1 617.416.2034 • Email:
john.martin@
perkinelmer.com • Web:
www.perkinelmer.com
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