Events & News

31st webinar of the series in the Hebd'Eau series titled « Nanoplastics: detecting them, defining them and studying their behavior in continental water ».

Invited speaker: Julien Gigault, associated professor at Université Laval and researcher at TAKUVIK, collaborating member of CentrEau

Langue : French, with slides in French

Summary: For more than 10 years, prof. Gigault has focused on all the physico-chemical phenomena that will control the presence, source and fate of nanoparticles in the environment. For this purpose, he is currently developing original analytical methods to characterize nanoparticles in complex natural environments. Finally, an important part of his work is to better understand the main mechanisms of transport and accumulation of nanoparticles in order to validate the main results obtained in the field. Since 2014, he is focusing on nanoplastics in different environmental compartments.

In 2015, it was estimated that more than 300 million tons of plastic would be produced worldwide. It is now widely recognized that some of this plastic reaches the aquatic environment as plastic debris of various sizes. While studies focus primarily on oceans and microplastics, the extent of the impact of plastic debris on water resources and human health remains largely unknown. Although it is the least studied aspect of plastic debris in the environment, nanoplastics are potentially the most dangerous. Soil, sludge and municipal wastewater effluents are a major source of micro- but especially nanoplastics, which could directly impact water bodies. This contamination by nanoplastics appears to be a fundamental problem that directly hinders the achievement of several sustainable development objectives. This webinar will present the first results of his study on nanoplastics and the main challenges concerning this new emerging contaminant already identifiable in our close environment.