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Creating a high thru-put method to detect, quantify, and characterize microplastics in surface waters
Citation:
Whiting, Q., K. O'Connor, P. Potter, AND Souhail A. Al-Abed. Creating a high thru-put method to detect, quantify, and characterize microplastics in surface waters. Presented at American Chemical Society Spring meeting, N/A, OH, March 04, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Microplastics are abundant in freshwater systems and need a quick, accurate way to be analyzed. Here, we show how laser directed infrared (LDIR) can be utilized to quantify, identify, and characterize microplastics. We show real-world environmental samples, sampling, preparation, and analysis techniques. This new technique for analyzing microplastics with LDIR is important for the scientific community so that sample processing can keep up with large sampling efforts for microplastics. These results will be a proof-of-concept for other researchers such that they may use LDIR as a faster analysis method than other traditional microplastic analysis methods. Additionally, these results will show microplastic pollution in the urban environment.
Description:
Since microplastic pollution has been detected in our waterways, research and monitoring have become topics of interest. However, many difficulties prevent large-scale monitoring of urban watersheds for microplastic pollution. One of which is a lack of a high thru-put method for detection, quantification, and characterization of microplastic particles. Current analytical methods such as FTIR and Raman spectroscopy are time consuming and require a knowledgeable user, making it difficult to analyze the many samples required for watershed monitoring, in a timely fashion. The use of a Laser Direct Infrared (LDIR) Chemical Imaging System provides a high thru-put, automated, and reproducible method for detection, quantification, and characterization of microplastics. The LDIR scan time is quicker than other IR detection methods and is completely automated. For this reason, removal of all non-plastic particles in not necessary and thus less sample preparation steps are required for LDIR analysis. Chemical oxidation and density separation can be selectively performed based on initial characterization of the sample source through methods such as total organic content (TOC). Filtration of the sample onto a gold-coated filter allows for good IR reflection, such that high-quality IR matches occur, it also provides a representative sample for analysis. Here, we present a high thru-put method for sample preparation and analysis for microplastics in surface waters.