Pollution Solution
Researchers develop tiny cleaners to tackle the big problem of microplastics.
Beaches and lakeshores rimmed with plastic bottles and bags are a fairly common sight. But such visible pollution reveals only a portion of the problem. Too small to see with the naked eye, microplastics are bits of degraded plastic that are found in natural bodies of water, the air, the atmosphere and even ice-covered areas like the Arctic. Eventually, microplastics can make their way into the food supply. They are not immediately toxic, but “long-term accumulation in the human body is definitely undesirable,” says Orlin Velev, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
“Long-term accumulation in the human body is definitely undesirable.”
While there are methods for removing larger pieces of plastic from bodies of water, “cleaning up the small particles is really problematic,” Velev says. Chemical and biomolecular engineering researchers are exploring multiple ways, including a system of microcleaners that work a bit like robotic vacuums, zooming around and collecting dust. Velev and his team have equipped soft dendritic colloids — particles that were made from a natural byproduct of shellfish — with vegetable oil to propel them through water. Because the particles are sticky, they trap microplastics as they spread out and descend. The team also paired the cleaning particles with magnesium that eventually causes a bubbling effect, pulling the microcleaner back to the surface of the water, where it, and the microplastic it collected, can be skimmed away.
“This is very future oriented,” says Velev, but his team has tested and published a proof of concept. “Microplastics are already a serious problem,” he says, adding that the plastics currently contaminating the environment are from polymers produced 20 years ago. Production rates have increased exponentially since then, so “most of the polymer that has been produced worldwide still has not degraded into microplastics,” Velev says. “That is going to contribute to the contamination in the years to come.”
“It is scary.”
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