Can We Detect and Remove Microplastics in Our Water?

Microplastics are everywhere. These teeny tiny versions of plastic are in our water, our food, and even our BRAINS. Practically everyone knows what they are, and every scientist thinks they will not be good for human health, animal health, and the environment.

The problem isn't that there are aren't methods to remove microplastics from our water - because there are - but that these methods can't get rid of all of the microplastics. No matter how many filters our wastewater treatment plants use, there is still a significant number of microplastic particles present, which run the risk of making us sick. Filters are supposed to be the best method to remove plastics, yet they're still not good enough.

Not only that, but we're not entirely sure that we're accurately couting how many microplastics are slipping through these filters. Current methods are either not accurately detecting how many microplastics are in our water, or they're waaaayyyyyy too slow at doing so. We need to be harder better faster AND stronger.

"A strategy for quantifying microplastic particles in membrane filtration processes using flow cytometry" tackles BOTH of these issues! If we can use better methods to identify how many microplastics are getting through the water purification process, we can design better ways to remove them. They used a technique called *flow cytometry*, one that's commonly reserved for biomedical applications. Watch the full video for more on how they did it - and how effective this could be moving forward.

Though it might seem like a small step forward, it's a necessary one for advancing research in microparticle detection and, ultimately, providing clean water to people around the world.

Chapters:
01:30 Background: What are microplastics? How do we get rid of them? How do we detect them?
04:40 Background: Flow cytometry
06:10 Results: microparticles, flow cytometry basics
10:20 Results: Answering the big question
13:04 Conclusions

Full text link to "A strategy for quantifying microplastic particles in membrane filtration processes using flow cytometry": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

#science #engineering #microplastics