Figure 2 - uploaded by Mánus Cunningham
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A workflow diagram illustrating the extraction of prospective microplastics from each sample medium and the subsequent optical observations and chemical identification processes.
Source publication
Understanding the transport and accumulation of microplastics is useful to
determine the relative risk they pose to global biodiversity. The exact
contribution of microplastic sources is hard to elucidate; therefore,
investigating the Antarctic Weddell Sea, an area known for its remoteness
and little human presence (i.e. limited pollution sources),...
Citations
... Microplastics are particles of plastics of less than 5 mm and are ubiquitous, having been found in drinking water [1] to Antarctic's ice. [25] For their detection, a large sample of water must be taken and transported to the laboratory for centrifugation, or large nets with different mesh are dragged through filter liters of water. [7,26] This allows the concentration of the particles before their identification by various optical techniques. ...
Microparticles are ubiquitous and span from living matter to microplastics to inorganic materials. Their detection and identification must be more accessible and time efficient. Microfluidic devices can filter microparticles from liquids, but fabricating microfluidics with lateral resolutions of a few tens of microns is complex, lengthy, and outside the reach of most scientists researching microparticles. In this article, we show how to use height features in a channel instead of relying on lateral elements for separating particles. The height features can be as small as 25 µm, along the Z axis, using consumer-grade 3D printers. We show the potential of such microfluidic devices for size-sorting parasite eggs such as Schistosoma haematobium, microplastics, and zooplankton.
