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

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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.