Project Grant 2127503

This Project Grant award of $569,435 from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports collaborative research at Northeastern University to investigate the impact of plastic-derived dissolved organic carbon (PDOC) on the ocean's biological carbon pump. The core hypothesis being tested is that bacteria consuming PDOC compete with phytoplankton for key nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, reducing new production and the strength of the biological carbon pump,...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $243,076 Project Grant to Northeastern University under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) for the period of September 1, 2021 through August 31, 2023. The grant will support the collaborative research project "Assessing the Contribution of Plastics to Marine Particulate Organic Carbon." The Geosciences program seeks to expand fundamental knowledge and understanding of the integrated Earth system through basic research in atmospheric, earth,...

This $665,899 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) will support a collaborative research project to study the interactions between plastic-derived dissolved organic carbon and the biological carbon pump in ocean ecosystems. The University of New Hampshire will conduct a combination of laboratory experiments, field sampling, and numerical modeling to test the hypothesis that bacteria consuming plastic-derived organic matter compete with...

This three-year, $303,793 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry supports research into the formation and environmental impacts of micro- and nano-plastics in water systems. Titled "Collaborative Research: CAS-MNP: Radical-Induced Weathering of Micro- and Nanoplastics in Water: Impacts on Suspensions, Agglomerations, and Contaminant Adsorptions," the award enables Professors Julie Peller of Valparaiso University and Stephen Mezyk of California State...

This $300,000 EAGER (Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) project, awarded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050), aims to examine whether chemical reactions can alter the composition of land-derived organic carbon in a way that makes it appear similar to marine organic carbon. The research team from Old Dominion University Research Foundation will conduct experiments to monitor the reaction rates and compositional changes of land-derived organic...

This three-year, $192,385 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemistry and Mathematical and Physical Sciences program will support research into the formation and properties of micro- and nano-plastics in water systems. Professors Julie Peller of Valparaiso University and Stephen Mezyk of California State University, Long Beach will lead their students in experiments simulating the environmental weathering and chemical changes of small plastic particles over time...

This $300,000 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) will support research to determine the impact of microplastics on the distribution of naturally-occurring radioactive isotopes in the marine environment. The University of Rochester will lead this 2-year project, which aims to quantify the association of select particle-reactive radioisotopes with plastics through a combination of laboratory experiments and field work at coastal and...

This $850,426 project grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) supports a collaborative research effort led by Duke University to investigate the impacts of plastic additives across biological and social scales. The 5-year project comprises two phases: Phase I will characterize the effects of plastic additives on cells, organisms, and ecological communities, assess the regulatory landscape, and conduct community-level...

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will receive $449,385 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to assess the controls of plastic photochemical reactivity in the surface ocean from June 1, 2022 to May 31, 2025. WHOI researchers Collin Ward and Taylor Nelson will study how factors like particle size, plastic formulation, and sunlight wavelength impact the oxidation, chain scission, and dissolved organic production...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences awarded a $346,823 Project Grant to the Regents of the University of Colorado (doing business as the University of Colorado) to conduct research under the NSF Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050). This research project aims to better understand how transformations to microplastics in coastal environments impact their regional-scale transport and fate. The study will use Lagrangian tracers and existing hydrodynamic modeling to quantify...