A&P Seminar - Zhanfei Liu

The Analytical and Physical Division Seminar Series presents: Zhanfei Liu

UT Department of Marine Science

Host: Carlos Baiz

Title: Science on a nurdle: Understanding the environmental behaviors of microplastics in marine environments 

Location: WEL 2.122

Refreshments served at 3:15pm

Nurdles, as small resin pellets (<4mm) for making final plastic products, are becoming a significant pollutant in Texas coastal shorelines and worldwide due to the spills by the production facilities and during transportation. Understanding the environmental behaviors of nurdles, such as transport, sorption of contaminants, weathering and fate, thus, is important for management and toxicity evaluation. In the last five years or so, we have systematically studied the environmental behaviors nurdles on Texas and Mexico coasts. In this seminar, I’ll talk about nurdles regarding the sorption of organic contaminants, transport along the coast by numerical modeling, and the weathering and photooxidation based on field samples and laboratory incubations.