Measurement campaign at SBO - Utrecht University, IMAU: Project NIRA

In the framework of the "Transnational Access Program" of the EU project INTERACT (supported by the EU Horizon 2020 project INTERACT, grant agreement no. 730938 ) the measurement campaign NIRA is currently taking place at Sonnblick Observatory.
NIRA (Nanoplastics In Remote Air: types, concentrations and size distribution) is a measurement campaign of the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research (IMAU), Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The project leader is Dr. Dušan Materić.

Figure 01: Set-up of the measuring apparatus for detecting micro- and nanoplastics on air.

Based on previous studies and measurement campaigns, NIRA aims to investigate and measure the amount, type and size distribution of nanoplastics in high mountain air.
Sampling of micro- and nanoplastics will be performed with a cascade impactor (see pictures), so that the plastic particles will be classified according to their aerodynamic size into the following groups: <0.25, 0.25-0.44, 0.44-0.77, 0.77-1.5, and >1.5 μm.
Samples will be collected on the aerosol filters and later analyzed at Utrecht University using thermal desorption - proton transfer reaction - mass spectrometry (TD-PTR-MS).

Figure 02: Cascade impactor, for sorting plastic particles according to their aerodynamic size.