Soil science, Dr. Melanie Braun: Tracking down the tiniest plastic particles in the soil
Plastic waste is polluting our rivers, oceans and our land. There is hardly any soil left in the world that does not contain plastic residues. The majority of studies in this area focusing on microplastics—particles measuring between one micrometer and five millimeters in size and as such, smaller than an ant. However, with colloidal and nanoplastics even smaller plastic particles exist; with sizes below 1,000 or 100 nanometers, they are smaller than human cells. In her ERC Starting Grant project ‘NanoSoil: Nano- and colloidal plastics in soil: input, plant uptake and risk assessment’, Dr. Melanie Braun from the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn will spend the next five years investigating nanoplastics in the soil-plant system. Asked to explain her motivation, she said: “We suspect that nanoplastics in particular exert a range of harms, including on human health”. Dr. Braun is also a member of the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn.
Although it has been possible to detect plastic particles of less than 1,000 nanometer in size in soils, it has not yet been possible to quantify them. Melanie Braun and her team are planning to subject existing analytical methods to further development in order to achieve this. Dr. Braun is preparing to deploy these methods to detect colloidal and nanoplastics in European agricultural soils and investigate the main routes by which nanoplastics and in particular, biodegradable plastics, enter the soil. Her team will also investigate how much of the plastic is taken up by various crops to determine whether our food is contaminated.
“The ERC Starting Grant will enable me to combine my two research foci into nanoparticles and plastics,” says a delighted Melanie Braun. “The grant gives me the opportunity to work for five years on a highly interesting but also very complex topic and to build up my own team.”
Dr. Melanie Braun studied geography at the University of Cologne before starting as a research assistant at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn, where she also completed her doctorate and subsequently worked as a research associate. In 2016, she received an Annemarie Schimmel Fellowship from the University of Bonn, in 2022, she was awarded the Klaus Toepfer Research Prize of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Sustainable Futures" at the University of Bonn. Dr. Braun has worked as an Akademische Rätin (lecturer with civil servant status) at INRES since 2021.
... to press release of the University of Bonn: