Collaborative Research: CAS-MNP: Radical-induced Weathering of Micro- and Nanoplastics in Water: Impacts on Suspensions, Agglomerations, and Contaminant Adsorptions

这一奖项来自化学系环境化学科学项目，支持瓦尔帕莱索大学的Julie Peller教授和加州州立大学长滩分校的Stephen Mezyk教授及其学生。这个项目正在探索小塑料件的形成和老化，这些小塑料件是从环境中的塑料物品中产生的。世界目前正面临着大量塑料垃圾污染的问题，特别是在水环境中。被称为微塑料和纳米塑料的非常小的塑料碎片非常普遍，大多数人用肉眼看不到。这些塑料颗粒在水中稳定了几十年，现在被证明对人类健康和生态系统产生了负面影响。这些小塑料颗粒的反应性和行为将在实验室中代表真实世界环境的各种条件下进行测定。研究人员及其本科生和硕士研究生将利用电离辐射源，在更长的时间内加速这些小塑料在环境中发生的化学和物理变化。来自西班牙裔服务机构(加州州立大学长滩分校)和瓦尔帕莱索大学(VU)的本科生将参与这项研究，并通过与环境和公共卫生有关的会议/媒体场所分享数据。少数民族高中生将参加弗吉尼亚大学的暑期研究。这些研究成果将被整合到两所大学的课程中，包括CSULB的动力学MS课程，该课程现在包括环境污染和弗吉尼亚大学化学实验室实验。最近关于小型聚乙烯微塑料和纳米塑料在水中容易形成的测定将被用于研究多种塑料聚合物作为水悬浮液或溶液的性质和反应性。电离辐射技术将被用来研究模拟纳米塑料真实世界化学变化的自由基反应，并创造出不同水平的耐候纳米塑料。这些风化物种的化学和物理变化将在其他常见溶解物质的存在和不同条件下进行探索。这些实验预计将产生关于水体系中小微塑料和纳米塑料的检测、长期变化和潜在补救的信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award from the Environmental Chemical Sciences Program in the Division of Chemistry supports Professors Julie Peller at Valparaiso University and Stephen Mezyk at California State University-Long Beach and their students. This project is exploring the formation and aging of small plastics pieces that are being created from plastic items in the environment. The world is currently being challenged with the problem of massive plastic waste pollution, especially in water environments. Plastic pieces that are very small, known as microplastics and nanoplastics, are extremely widespread and mostly not visible by the human eye. These plastic particles, which are stable for decades in water, are now being shown to negatively impact human health and ecosystems. The reactivity and behavior of these small plastic particles will be determined in the laboratory under various conditions that represent real world environments. The researchers and their undergraduate and MS students will take advantage of ionizing radiation sources to accelerate chemical and physical changes that happen to these small plastics in the environment over a longer period of time. Undergraduate students from the Hispanic Serving Institution (California State University Long Beach, CSULB) and Valparaiso University (VU) will participate in the research and share the data through conference/media venues related to environmental and public health. Minority high school students will take part in the VU summer research. These research findings will be integrated into courses at both universities, including a CSULB MS course on kinetics that now includes environmental pollution and VU chemistry laboratory experiments.A recent determination for the facile formation of small polyethylene microplastics and nanoplastics in water will be utilized to study the properties and reactivities of multiple plastic polymers as aqueous suspensions or solutions. Ionizing radiation techniques will be used to study the radical reactions that simulate the real-world chemical changes of nanoplastics, and to create various levels of weathered nanoplastics. The chemical and physical changes of these weathered species will be probed in the presence of other common dissolved substances and under different conditions. These experiments are expected to generate information on the detection, long-term changes and potential remediation of small micro and nanoplastics in aqueous systems.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.