Student members travelling abroad for an internship, final-year project or study trip can apply for a grant from KIVI’s Study and Travel Fund. In this section, students share their experiences. This time, Julian Manrho (TU Delft) talks about his stay in Sweden.

Text: Julian Manrho

Can you imagine an environment where it is completely dark, the temperature barely changes and the water pressure is hundreds of times higher than at the Earth’s surface? At a depth of five kilometres, the ocean floor is flat and empty, like a desert. Precisely because conditions in the deep sea have remained stable for thousands of years, life there is often highly sensitive to changes in the environment.

Meanwhile, the ocean floor contains large quantities of metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt – raw materials that are vital for batteries, wind turbines and other technologies needed for the energy transition. To be able to extract these raw materials responsibly in the future, a thorough understanding of the impact on the deep-sea environment is essential. One of the key areas of concern here is the formation of sediment plumes: clouds of fine particles that disperse through the water and can interact with vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems.

This research is being carried out in collaboration with Delft University of Technology, Allseas, the University of Gothenburg and the Kristineberg Centre in Sweden. Thanks in part to support from KIVI, I was able to spend a month conducting research at the Kristineberg research station on the west coast of Sweden.

Sound and light

My research focused on the use of acoustic and optical sensors to measure the properties of sediment plumes. Rather than analysing water samples manually, these sensors aim to provide real-time information on, for example, sediment concentrations and the size of suspended particles. To this end, I worked with various measuring instruments, including acoustic backscatter sensors and optical turbidity sensors. These techniques measure how sound waves and light are scattered by suspended sediment particles in water. However, the behaviour of these sediments turns out to be surprisingly complex. The extremely fine clay particles can clump together to form larger aggregates, known as flocs, whose properties are constantly changing due to current, turbulence and salinity.

During my stay, I carried out many laboratory experiments to better understand how these sensors respond under different conditions. Although the results are still being analysed, the initial observations offer promising insights for future monitoring techniques.

Amidst the fjords

As well as the technical research, the surroundings were also a special experience. I stayed in a student house right by the Swedish fjords, surrounded by nature. Outside the lab, I spent a lot of time hiking along the coast, rowing through the fjords and exploring the Swedish west coast. The Kristineberg research station focuses heavily on marine and biological research, which meant I also came into contact with many other fields of research. In my spare time, I regularly attended biological experiments on marine ecosystems. It was precisely this combination of engineering, ecology and international collaboration that made this experience particularly valuable to me and strengthened my motivation for better monitoring of deep-sea activities.

I am very grateful to KIVI for making this experience possible. The combination of research, international collaboration and life by the fjords has further strengthened my interest in offshore technology and environmental monitoring. I look forward to further developing the results of this research in the coming period and contributing to the development of responsible deep-sea research.

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