Internship – Plastic Degradation

STARTING DATE: February 2025 LOCATION: Rotterdam, Netherlands

MISSION TO METRICS

The mission of The Ocean Cleanup is to develop and scale advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. Research plays a vital role in our mission, as we carry out research on plastic pollution to better understand the problem and develop more effective cleanup solutions. One of the objectives of our research team is to understand the long-term fate of ocean plastics and, in particular, describe the drivers of plastic degradation within the marine environment. An important research aspect is to determine the age and the persistence of floating plastic debris at the sea surface and quantify the degree of weathering and degradation (i.e., aging) of this plastic debris afloat in the surface ocean. To get a more holistic understanding of the weathering processes at play, accelerated and controlled weathering of selected polymers is needed to mimic the effects on legacy plastics. This project is a continuation of initial efforts to weather common polyolefin samples in a UV weathering chamber that accelerates the natural process of degradation. A comparative analysis using accelerated and naturally weathered samples will allow for the creation of a baseline for dating plastic marine debris with unknown residence time in seawater. Once comparable metrics are found between the accelerated and naturally weathered samples, plastic marine debris with production dates will be subjected to the same chemical analysis to verify whether the calibration between the two experiments is environmentally relevant and accurate. If this can be confirmed, field samples from the North Pacific Ocean will be analyzed to investigate a potential pattern in the weathering indexes. You will be responsible for the concept development and related research of a method to date ocean plastics. Ultimately, the method will be applied to characterize samples from the North Pacific Ocean to compare their residence time and eventually assess their age and origin. You will work closely with our research team to assess and analyze the conceptual ideas of this project, and your work will culminate in a final thesis or internship report.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsible for knowledge building and delivering high-quality concept designs for the development of scientific methods.  Other responsibilities include:

• Conduct a literature review to assess the current state of knowledge in relation to the research project
• Familiarize yourself with the different techniques used to age ocean plastics
• Develop the method to age ocean plastics
• Design an experimental setup for creating known aged plastics under natural environmental conditions to test the efficiency of the developed method
• Apply the method using plastics collected from the Pacific Ocean
• Conduct data analysis, interpretation, presentation and deliver a complete report

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Pursuing a Master's degree or in the end stages of a Bachelor’s degree
• Successful completion of advanced chemistry courses
• Experience with laboratory protocols, procedures, and safety measures
• Experience with polymer science
• Experience with chemical research in a laboratory
• Ability to clearly present and explain results of complex research to scientists
• Ability to quickly build an understanding of complicated technical subjects, where limited knowledge is available
• Fluent in English

PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Be able to quickly get to the essence of a technical challenge, and investigate the most relevant/important aspects to get to a solution direction
• Able to perform well in a fast-paced and challenging environment
• Curious, creative, and determined to deliver
• Flexible team player
• Ability to work independently
• Strong organizational skills
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Intrinsic motivation to work on our ambitious and meaningful goal

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

• Work permit: A valid European Union work permit is required for this position (the role is based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
• Duration: 6 months
• Starting date: February 2025
• At The Ocean Cleanup, we believe we are stronger together, while harnessing the uniqueness each individual brings. That is why we take a fair, equal opportunity, and transparent approach to hiring and welcome special needs requests
• Note that the candidate must be enrolled at a University (MSc program) during the internship.

Curious to hear how it is to work at The Ocean Cleanup? Listen to our team members explain their work in our podcasts.