Photo Credit: iStock
It’s only been two decades since microplastics — now a well-known contaminant and the subject of near-constant research — were formally identified and entered scientific literature.
In that time, the most notable microplastics finding has been that they’re “in everything.”
They’re pervasive in the environment as well as in the tissues of nearly every living orga…
Photo Credit: iStock
It’s only been two decades since microplastics — now a well-known contaminant and the subject of near-constant research — were formally identified and entered scientific literature.
In that time, the most notable microplastics finding has been that they’re “in everything.”
They’re pervasive in the environment as well as in the tissues of nearly every living organism in it. Microplastics are in the air we breathe, the soil, rivers, lakes, oceans, the fish and other food we eat, our bloodstreams, brains, and bodies.
In short, research has focused significantly on what microplastics are in. But according to Phys.org, a new study examined taking these contaminants out — of water, to be precise.
A 2021 study in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Endocrinology cited inhalation and ingestion as the two primary ways microplastics enter the human body. Specifically, “water bottled in plastic” was identified in the abstract as a “major source” of microplastic ingestion.
A team of water scientists from South Africa noted that an estimated 51 trillion microplastic particles are “floating in the world’s surface waters,” presenting a problem they hoped to help solve with a “practical fix.”
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They published a study in the August edition of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, illustrating their approach to removing microplastics from water and their findings.
Using two “magnetic cleaning powders” and alluding to an “urgent need for advanced remediation strategies,” the researchers were the first to investigate whether these “specific nanomaterials” could meaningfully reduce microplastic contamination in drinking water.
They mixed “a small dose” of the powders, magnetic nanocomposites, into water samples. The objective was for the powders to bind to microplastic particles, which are by definition 5 millimeters or smaller, and to then extract the powders with a “strong magnet.”
In their testing, they determined that the two powders “were able to remove up to 96% of small polyethylene and 92% of polystyrene particles from purified water.” Those results held for samples of drinking water and wastewater, at 94% and 92% respectively.
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Moreover, they observed that the size of the microplastic particles impacted how efficient the powders were — smaller particles were easier to extract, whereas particles measuring between 3 and 5 millimeters “were hardly removed at all.”
The researchers explained that the smaller pieces stuck more readily to the powder, which could be a boon, as smaller microplastics and nanoplastics are the “hardest to catch with normal [water] filters,” per The Conversation.
Ultimately, the researchers believed the method could be scaled and had potential as a cost-effective means of removing microplastics from drinking water.
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