Date (Creation)

2021-10-08

Date (Revision)

Date (Publication)

2022-10-27

Date (Publication)

Citation identifier

3c122742-3516-4bde-8128-deeea6ebf3d0

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency		mst@mst.dk	Dataset Holding Organisation
Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Marine Ecology Roskilde			Author

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

• Oceanographic geographical features

SeaVoX salt and fresh water body gazetteer

• Storebaelt
• Kattegat

SeaDataNet Agreed Parameter Groups

• Pollution

SeaDataNet Parameter Discovery Vocabulary

• Suspended particulate material grain size parameters
• Micro-litter in water bodies

Keywords

Access constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

no limitations to public access

Use limitation

Conditions for access and use apply

Use constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

ODC-By

Language

English

Character set

UTF8

Topic category

• Oceans

Begin date

2020-10-23

End date

2020-11-02

Supplemental Information

Project report

Unique resource identifier

WGS 1984

Name

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download	https://cloud.emodnet-ingestion.eu/index.php/s/Q4n0q9CfV6YCfN7
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Statement

All the samples contained low levels of SPM and organic matter, and a bottle with prefiltered (filtered through a filter with pore size 0.22 µm) reverse osmosis (RO) water was used to rinse the sample material directly from the mesh filters to Whatman glass microfiber filters (grade GF/A, pore size 1.6 µm, Ø 47 mm). Filtration was carried out in sterile conditions in a laminar airflow cabinet (with HEPA filter) using a Nalgene vacuum filtration system. In most cases, the material on the mesh filters were filtered on to 1-3 GF/A filters depending on the amount of SPM. After filtration, the filters with material were immediately transferred to a petri dish and covered prior to drying and analysis.

After filtration, all samples were analysed by visual identification followed by chemical confirmation of the polymer material. A Nikon SMZ745T stereo microscope (x20 magnification) with analysis software (Infinity Analyze v.6.5.6) was used to photograph and measure individual particles. The selection of particles was made following standard NIVA protocols which are mirrored in peer-reviewed literature (Lusher et al. 2020). Visual analysis followed where potential plastics were isolated, photographed, described in terms of morphology and color, and measured along the longest length (µm). The following definitions were used for fragments, fibers and bead according to GESAM (2019). Fragments are defined as irregular

NIVA 7601-2021 11

shaped hard particles having appearance of being broken down from a larger piece of litter, fibers as long fibrous material that has a length substantially longer than its width and beads as hard particle with spherical, smooth or granular shape.

All particles from each sample were subjected to further chemical characterization using µFTIR micro-scope analysis. This was performed on a Perkin Elmer Spotlight 400 µFTIR spectrometer. To improve the quality of the spectra generated, particles were prepared for analysis using a diamond compression cell (DCC) accessory. Particles were carefully transferred from glass microfiber filter papers to the DCC with use of extra fine micro-forceps. The DCC compresses the particles to a thin, homogeneous thickness. The DCC was then loaded onto the µFTIR microscope stage for analysis. Measurements were obtained in transmission mode and at 4 cm-1 spectral resolution for the range 4000 to 600 cm-1. Spectra were produced from a composite of 2 co scans. Background measurements were taken before each batch of particles was analysed. Library matching was performed in the Spectrum 10 software (v. 10.6.2). Each spectrum was compared to several different libraries available at NIVA: Perkin Elmer ATR Polymers library, ST Japan Polymers ATR library, BASEMAN library (Primpke et al. 2018), and several in-house libraries including reference polymers, different textile materials, and potential sources of laboratory contamination. All spectra were manually inspected to ensure that the library matches were acceptable. If the polymer type of a particle could not be confirmed (low intensity peaks, small particle size) but the spectra showed characteristic peaks of synthetic plastic it was included as ‘other plastic’.

Field blank samples were performed on the vessel alongside sample collection. Field blanks consisted of the same filter material left exposed to air for the duration at which the filters were not housed inthe Ferrybox (during changing and packaging of the samples). The field blanks were performed to monitor for potential contamination during the changing of the filters. The field blanks were processed in the same way as the samples to represent any contamination introduced during the sampling procedure. One field blank was performed per sample, apart from CF2 where no field blank was per-formed.

Three laboratory blanks were included in each round of filtration to test for laboratory contamination. Prefiltered RO-water was filtered at the start, in the middle and in the end of the filtration of the samples using the same set up as the samples. The purpose of this is to have control over the potential contamination during the whole filtration process with the blanks representing the levels of contamination that could have been introduced to the samples that were filtered the same day.

Metadata

File identifier

3c122742-3516-4bde-8128-deeea6ebf3d0 XML

Metadata language

English

Character set

UTF8

Hierarchy level

Dataset

Date stamp

2025-05-09T00:00:00

Metadata standard name

ISO 19115:2003/19139

Metadata standard version

1.0

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Marine Ecology Roskilde			Point of contact