Technology development for monitoring marine microplastic pollution

Majority of marine plastics are deteriorated and broken down into small pieces, called microplastics. Microplastics not only release harmful chemical additives but also absorb residual organic pollutants such as PCB. It is one of the most urgent issues for international society to understand where and how much various types of microplastics are distributed in the world ocean.

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PROJECT SUMMARY

We aim to establish an innovative semi-automated measurement system which enables rapid qualitative/quantitative analysis of marine microplastics on board or in a laboratory using Hyperspectral Camera Imaging technology.

Measurement and analysis of microplastic in water are usually time and labor consuming, thus it has been challenging to effectively analyze large number of samples. Information on microplastics smaller than 300µm is least known despite of its large potential risk for marine ecosystems because these particles cannot be collected by the conventional sampling methods using plankton nets.

To overcome the technical constrains and fill the knowledge gap of the smaller microplastics, we will develop the microplastic measurement system which can semi-automatically remove non-plastic materials, and collect, count, and identify sizes and materials of microplastics of even smaller than 300µm. Hyperspectral Camera Imaging technique can detect the material specific spectral patterns of near-infrared and short-wavelength infrared. We develop the database of microplastic information based on these spectral patterns, and apply machine learning technique to automatically and rapidly classify each microplastic feature on the images. By the end of the project, we expect to be able to apply this system to the underway water-intake system of research vessels, as well as to analyze bottled water samples at laboratories and on smaller ships.

MEMBER

NAME TITLE AFFILIATION
Katsunori Fujikura Principal Researcher Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Yugo Kanaya Principal Researcher Earth Surface System Research Center
Sanae Chiba Visiting Principal Researcher Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Kazumasa Oguri Visiting Senior Researcher Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Dhugal Lindsay Senior Researcher Advanced Science-Technology Research Program
Hidetaka Nomaki Senior Researcher Super-cutting-edge Grand and Advanced Research Program
Masashi Tsuchiya Researcher Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Ryota Nakajima Researcher Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Zhu Chunmao Researcher(II) Earth Surface System Research Center
Tomo Kitahashi Project Engineer Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center
Shinji Shimode Professor Yokohama National University