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T3RANCE- Trophic Transfer and Toxicity Risk Assessment of Nanoplastics in Coastal Ecosystems

Category
Projekti Hrvatske zaklade za znanost
Total cost
199.999,05
EUR
Start date
Dec 8th 2025
End date
Dec 7th 2028
Status
Active
More information
Project Web page

Principal investigator

Daniel Mark Lyons, dr. sc.

Daniel.Lyons@irb.hr

+385 52 804 725

Microplastics present an ever-growing burden in the aquatic environment, yet these are not necessarily the final stage of plastics environmental aging, but rather may in turn continue to be degraded, eventually forming nano-scale polymer particles. While significant research efforts have focussed on understanding the behaviour, impact and fate of microplastics in the environment, relatively little attention has been paid to the smaller nanoplastic fractions primarily due to challenges in detection and analysis in complex matrices. Therefore, taking a multidisciplinary approach, T3RANCE aims to address knowledge gaps on the impact of nanoplastics, as vectors for relevant hydrophobic organic pollutants, on key invertebrate and vertebrate marine species, their biodistribution in those species and to uncover movement of these particles among trophic levels within selected marine food chains. The approach that T3RANCE takes encompasses several sequential steps: production of nanoplastics by degradation of both pristine and field-collected samples as well as the synthesis of corresponding nanoplastics incorporating labels; physicochemical characterisation of these materials by advanced techniques; determination of their toxicity profiles in species occupying key niches in the marine ecosystem using state of the art tiered testing strategies; and assessment of the kinetics and quantity of uptake of these materials in organisms ranging from bacteria to fish, as well as their ability to bioaccumulate, and potentially biomagnify, at different trophic levels in several marine food chains. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary project brings together expertise in organic and marine chemistry, biology, toxicology, molecular biology and ecology to provide a holistic view of the behaviour and fate of nanoplastics in the coastal environment, and add key knowledge on the impact of these materials in an anthropogenically-burdened ecosystem, and eventually on human health.