Plastic transport in rivers: Bridging the gap between surface and water column.

Rivers act as an important transportation pathway for land-based plastic litter to the ocean. Recently, rivers have also been identified as potential sinks and reservoirs for plastics. Knowledge of plastic transport over different depth profiles in rivers remains limited.

River plastic transport and storage budget.

Rivers are one of the main conduits that deliver plastic from land into the sea, and also act as reservoirs for plastic retention. Yet, our understanding of the extent of river exposure to plastic pollution remains limited. In particular, there has been no comprehensive quantification of the contributions from different river compartments, such as the water surface, water column, riverbank and floodplain to the overall river plastic transport and storage.

Macrolitter budget and spatial distribution in a groyne field along the Waal river.

Current research on riverine macrolitter does not yet provide a theoretic framework on the dynamics behind its accumulation and distribution along riverbanks. In an attempt to better understand these dynamics a detailed field survey of three months was conducted in which location of macrolitter items within a single groyne field along the Waal riverbanks was tracked. The data provided insight into the daily changing patterns of spatial item distribution with respect to the waterline.

Macroplastic concentrations in the water column of the river Rhine increase with higher discharge.

Riverine macroplastic pollution (>0.5 cm) negatively impacts ecosystems and human livelihoods. Monitoring data are crucial for understanding this issue and for the design of effective interventions strategies.

Engineering the biological conversion of formate into crotonate in Cupriavidus necator.

To advance the sustainability of the biobased economy, our society needs to develop novel bioprocesses based on truly renewable resources. The C1-molecule formate is increasingly proposed as carbon and energy source for microbial fermentations, as it can be efficiently generated electrochemically from CO and renewable energy. Yet, its biotechnological conversion into value-added compounds has been limited to a handful of examples.