Plastic pollution pose a major threat to marine biodiversity in the Mediterranean sea, highlighted as among the most polluted and vulnerable basins. The consistent anthropogenic footprint, the population density in coastal areas and the limited technologies to contain and counteract plastic immision represent drivers favouring the release, persistence and impacts of plastics on marine biodiversity, with possible consequences for economic sectors as fishery, aquaculture and tourism. The project should aim to unravel plastic impacts in marine environments, but also to study possible mitigation actions and technological innovations: indeed, despite the increasing knowledge, the uptake, elimination and biological effects of various real-world weathered microplastics are still unexplored. At the same time, the fate of plastics stranded along Italian shores has been often overlooked, with limited knowledge on the possible re-use or recycle of these materials: the involvement of IRIS srl will allow to explore the possibility to valorize plastic litter collected along Italian shores, transforming it in to clean energy. In this context, GreenPlasma yelds of energy per kilogram of plastics of different polymers, age and origin will be explored and possible asjustments of the pyrogassification process developed in order to maximize the possibility to transform plastic threats into green and circular economy opportunities towards EU Zero Pollution Vision.

Successful candidates are expected to have a background in marine biology and ecology with an interest in ecotoxicology of plastics and plastic-related contaminants, solutions to counteract plastic pollution and sustainable development goals. Preferred skills reflect the ability to sample marine abioti matrices and to process biological samples, knowledge on the main techniques to investigate biological markers through spectrophotometric, gas-chromatographic, brightfield and fluorescence microscopy, modern molecular biology techniques.

The project will be carried out at the Ecotoxicology and Environmental Chemistry Lab (ECOTOX), DiSVA, UNIVPM and with IRIS srl. The ECOTOX Lab team is mainly involved in the use of organisms as bioindicators of pollution, analysis of contaminants in aquatic species and foodwebs, presence and ecotoxicological effects of emerging contaminants as microplastics, pharmaceuticals and biotoxins. IRIS srl is an innovative SME with committed in the development of innovative waste-to-energy solutions as the GreenPlasma, a technology that uses a pyrogassification reaction to transform plastics into a hydrogen-rich syngas which will be then converted into clean electric energy.