Dr. Alice Pradel

Research area

I am an environmental scientist working at the intersection of geochemistry, physicochemistry and hydrology. I use experimental approaches to study how contaminants move through the hydrosphere. In particular, I study the unique behavior of colloidal matter to understand how colloids impact biogeochemical cycling and contaminant fluxes. I aim to generate data that can be used in numerical models and that guides field sampling efforts.

My PhD research has focused on understanding the environmental fate of nanoplastics . My work revealed that nanoplastics are significantly more prone to aggregate in water and to deposit in porous media than what previously predicted.

My research at ETH investigates the fate of plastic and natural particles in Arctic seawater. Indeed, due to climate change, most of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is being formed annually. So, my experiments investigate by which processes particles can be trapped in newly forming sea ice. This helps to better define the exposure of sea ice organisms (which are abundant in this young ice) and more generally, can help to understand how climate change impacts fluxes of matter in this ecosystem.