Plastic pollution is a growing concern for the health of our global oceans. An increasing number of scientific papers demonstrates the potential for significant harm caused by microplastics in animals of all trophic levels. Yet, without reliable knowledge of the environmental concentrations of plastics in our oceans and seas, these results are nearly impossible to link to population dynamics of marine species or changes in ecosystem services. Therefore, a new reliable, time- and cost- efficient method for the quantification and characterisation of microplastics from the Belgian part of the North Sea surface water is under development at Flanders Marine Institute, Belgium. In the frame of this thesis, replicable steps such as appropriate sampling, separation of microplastics from sample, digestion of organic material, visualisation of microplastics, quantification, and characterisation of polymer type with minimal cross-contamination are assessed to validate the method. Steps were accepted or rejected for review, with provided suggestions for improvement. Ideally, positive control yields should be above 90% recovery rate, and the digestion process may need to be revised for algae-laden samples. The use of Nile Red staining and visualisation in blue light and ultraviolet light fluoroscopy is necessary for classification of microplastics, with µ-FTIR spectroscopy for verification.
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