Marine Pollution Bulletin 218 (2025) 118216 
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Marine Pollution Bulletin 
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Analyzing the metal body burden of turbine-colonizing mussels from North 
Sea offshore wind farms 
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Alexa Zonderman ©”, Dominik Wippermann *°, Anna Ebeling ®, Ole Klein **, 
„1a . ; a . a oe: ‚dd 
Hans-Burkhard Erbslöh*, Tristan Zimmermann“, Lars Hildebrandt“, Simone Hasenbein ©, 
ingo Weinberg“, Torben Kirchgeorg‘, Daniel Pröfrock * 
* Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Institute of Coastal Environmental Chemistry, Department Inorganic Environmental Chemistry, Max-Planck Str. 1, 21502 Geesthacht, 
Germany 
> Universität Hamburg, Department of Biology, Institute of Marine Ecosystem and Fishery Science, Olbersweg 24, 22767 Hamburg, Germany 
“ Universität Hamburg, Department of Chemistry, Inorganic and Applied Chemistry, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 6, 20146 Hamburg, Germany 
1 Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), Wüstland 2, 22589 Hamburg, Germany 
ARTICLE INFO 
ABSTRACT 
Keywords: 
CP-MS/MS 
Invironmental 
Galvanic anodes 
Mytilus edulis 
Renewable energy 
Offshore wind farms (OWFs) are a key technology for renewable energy production. In the context of increased 
leployment of offshore energy infrastructure, it is important to estimate the potential chemical impacts of OWFs 
an the environment. These include emissions from galvanic anodes made of AlZnIn alloys, which may also 
:ontain other elements like Ga, Cd and Pb. The mussel Mytilus edulis is both a dominant colonizer of offshore 
wind turbine foundations and has a long history of use in environmental monitoring programs. We present a first 
nvestigation of metal(loid) mass fractions of M. edulis from OWFSs in the North Sea. 
"his dataset provides first information about the uptake of metals by mussels within OWF boundaries and is to 
ur knowledge the first study to present data of mussels originating from OWFs. No noteworthy accumulation of 
WF tracers or toxic metals in mussels was detected and mussels do not appear to be a sink for typical OWF- 
nduced metals. Lower metal mass fractions of (toxic) metals of this study compared to literature and moni- 
oring data are related to the geographic distance of OWFSs to large coastal contaminant inputs. This is especially 
relevant for future multi-use scenarios proposing OWF sites for aquaculture. 
5ynopsis Statement: The potential uptake of metals released from offshore wind farms by Mytilus edulis was 
tudied. Measured mass fractions in tissue are not expected to cause negative effects in M. edulis at the current 
;tage. 
L. Introduction 
OWFSs have been recently identified and described as a potential source 
‘or a suite of chemicals with yet understudied environmental impacts on 
marine systems (Hengstmann et al., 2025). 
To ensure the structural integrity of the offshore structures in the 
nighly corrosive operating environment of offshore wind farms (OWFSs), 
various strategies are used — often in combination: corrosion protection 
systems such as galvanic anode cathodic protection (GACP), impressed 
urrent cathodic protection (ICCP) and organic coatings, as well as 
°orrosion allowance (Gunda et al., 2017; Kirchgeorg et al., 2018). Each 
jf these protection strategies is a possible route introducing anthropo- 
zenic contaminants to the marine environment. In the case of GACP 
systems, theoretical calculations and laboratory experiments support the 
Renewable energy systems such as offshore wind energy play an 
‚mportant role in achieving the transition to sustainable energy and 
climate neutrality. As a result, the number of offshore wind installations 
are projected to increase dramatically in the coming years. In Germany, 
‘he target of 40 GW of installed power by 2035 will lead to a huge in- 
crease compared to the current capacity of 9 GW (BSH, 2023; GWEC, 
2025). On a worldwide scale, projects have accelerated with over half of 
che 83 GW total installations occurring since 2021 (GWEC, 2025). 
owever, the installation of large offshore infrastructure introduces a 
variety of new anthropogenic pressures to the marine environment: 
* Corresponding author. 
E-mail address: daniel.proefrock@hereon.de (D. Pröfrock). 
Present address: Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agenev (BSH), Wüstland 2, 22,589 Hamburg, Germany 
attps://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.118216 
Received 17 February 2025; Received in revised form 21 May 2025; Accepted 21 May 2025 
Available online 26 May 2025 
0025-326X/© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC RY license (http: //creativecommons.org /licenses/by/4.0/7.