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- Title
A new small device made of glass for separating microplastics from marine and freshwater sediments.
- Authors
Ryota Nakajima; Masashi Tsuchiya; Dhugal J. Lindsay; Tomo Kitahashi; Katsunori Fujikura; Tomohiko Fukushima
- Abstract
Separating microplastics from marine and freshwater sediments is challenging, but necessary to determine their distribution, mass, and ecological impacts in benthic environments. Density separation is commonly used to extract microplastics from sediments by using heavy salt solutions, such as zinc chloride and sodium iodide. However, current devices/apparatus used for density separation, including glass beakers, funnels, upside-down funnel-shaped separators with a shut-off valve, etc., possess various shortcomings in terms of recovery rate, time consumption, and/or usability. In evaluating existing microplastic extraction methods using density separation, we identified the need for a device that allows rapid, simple, and efficient extraction of microplastics from a range of sediment types. We have developed a small glass separator, without a valve, taking a hint from an Utermöhl chamber. This new device is easy to clean and portable, yet enables rapid separation of microplastics from sediments. With this simple device, we recovered 94–98% of <1,000 μm microplastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene terephthalate, and polystyrene). Overall, the device is efficient for various sizes, polymer types, and sediment types. Also, microplastics collected with this glass-made device remain chemically uncontaminated, and can, therefore, be used for further analysis of adsorbing contaminants and additives on/to microplastics.
- Subjects
PLASTIC marine debris; MARINE sediments; POLYETHYLENE terephthalate; ZINC chloride; SODIUM iodide; SOLUTION (Chemistry)
- Publication
PeerJ, 2019, p1
- ISSN
2167-8359
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.7717/peerj.7915