Jelle Kranenborg

Research

Nanoplastics: Origin, Structure, and Fate

After commercialization in the 1950s, annual global plastic production increased from 2 million tons to approximately 350 million tons in 2018. Plastics are used for a wide variety of day-to-day applications, including packaging, mobility, construction and building. Unfortunately, due to our single-use behaviour of e.g. shopping bags, plastic items are often thrown away and replaced. Subsequently, large quantities of plastic waste are produced that have an adverse effect on the environment: it pollutes our waters and poses a danger to animals.

It was recently estimated that about 99% of the plastic in the ocean remains undetected [1]. Much of this missing plastic is hypothesized to be the result of plastic degradation into micro- and nanoplastics, which is an even greater potential threat to the environment compared to the floating plastic, as it can be easily ingested by animals and humans [2].

Microplastics have received a lot of research attention [3] and have previously been shown to be degradation products from larger pieces of plastic. However, the degradation process does not stop at the micron scale, but microplastics continue to degrade into nanoplastics [4], which are below the detection limits of commonly available collection and identification methods. In addition, little is known about the effects of nanoplastics on the ecosystem. In order to properly tackle plastic pollution in the environment and to evaluate possible damage to humans and animals down to the microbial basis of the food web, it is crucial to set up a toolbox that enables the detection of nanoplastics. Unfortunately, moving from detecting and studying microplastics to nanoplastics is not as easy as one might think.

In this research project, we aim to detect and characterize these nanoplastics that are proposed to be a potentially important sink for the “missing” plastic fraction by developing methodologies to confirm their presence and determine their chemical and physical properties.

This project is part of a consortium with a complementary set of scientific expertise in chemistry, physics and biology. In this interdisciplinary team we work closely with researchers from Utrecht University, Leiden University, NIOZ, and the University of Amsterdam.

[1]        Environ. Res. Lett. 2015, 10, 124006.

[2]        Nat. Nanotechnol. 2019, 14, 299.

[3]        Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 4073.

[4]        Nat. Commun. 2018, 9, 1001.

C.V.

2020 – present
PhD candidate in the group of prof. dr. ir. Bert Weckhuysen, Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Utrecht University.

2018 – 2020
Master Science and Business Management at Utrecht University.

Master thesis: “Structure sensitivity in steam and dry methane reforming over supported nickel catalysts”, supervised by dr. Charlotte Vogt, prof. dr. ir. Bert Weckhuysen and dr. Florian Meirer.

Business internship at Total Research & Technology Feluy, Belgium. Topic: Energy storage systems.

2014 – 2018
Bachelor Chemistry at Utrecht University.

1994
Born in Zwolle, the Netherlands.