PhD: Surveying the marine environment for microplastics using a novel hyper-spectral infra-red camera on a UAV

来自陆地的宏观和微观塑料的污染正在海洋中积累;随着这些污染物进入海洋和人类食物链，人们越来越担心。问题的严重性现在才被揭示出来，因为这些物质很难用标准的遥感技术（可见光或雷达波长：从船只或卫星）检测到。大多数塑料都有一个众所周知的光谱特征，但是，在中等范围的红光，即波长为2.5 μ m至22 μ m（4000 - 450 cm-1）。商业中红外光谱仪（不是照相机）可以在实验室里很简单地检测和识别塑料样品。该学生将与卢瑟福阿普尔顿实验室的休·莫蒂默博士合作，改进他开发的中红外（中红外）超光谱照相机。这款相机拍摄了表面的多张图像，每张图像都在中红外线的一个单独波段中。其中一些波段“看到”塑料，而另一些则看不到，但通过组合和比较不同的波段，塑料可以在水，岩石或沙子的背景下被检测到。

Pollution from land-derived macro- and micro- plastics is accumulating in the oceans; there is growingconcern as these pollutants enter the oceanic and human food chain. The scale of the problem is only nowbeing revealed, because the substances are difficult to detect with standard remote sensing technique(visible or radar wavelength: from ships or satellite). Most plastics have a well-known spectral signature,however, in the mid-range Infra-red that is, wave lengths of 2.5um to 22um (4000 - 450cm-1). Commercialmid-IR spectrometers (not cameras) can detected and identified samples of plastics quite simply in thelaboratory.The student will work with Dr. Hugh Mortimer at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories to modifya mid-range Infra-Red (mid-IR) hyper-spectral camera that he has developed. This camera takes multipleimages of the surface, with each image in a separate wave-band in the mid-IR. Some of these bands 'see'plastics whilst others don't, but by combining and comparing different bands, plastics can be detectedagainst a back-ground of water, rocks or sand.