Macroplastics don’t go away. They just turn into microplastics. Photo: Unsplash
Microplastics have made their way into just about everything. Our blood, our snow, our oceans, and our soil all have it. Dolphins are breathing it out, and every day we’re producing more and more of it. But a newly developed foam might just be a fix to the enormous problem we’ve created.
“Microplastics entering terrestrial and aquatic habitats are anticipated to continuously increase for thousands of years, due to the alarming volumes of plastic waste in the environment (~4.6 billion metric tons) and the difficulty of degradation under natural conditions,” wrote the authors of a study on the foam. “The planet is under great threat from microplastics, and aquatic ecosystems are the first to suffer, as they provide convenient places for microplastics, which can combine with other contaminants and be ingested by multiple levels of organisms. The development of widely adapted approaches for microplastic remediation in the aqueous environment is urgently demanded.”
Although we are aware of just how big of a danger microplastics pose to not only humans but everything on the planet, precious little is being done about it. Sure, some people like Boyan Slat are actively tackling the cleanup job, but it’s not enough.
The foam, however, is incredible stuff. Not only is it sustainable and environmentally adaptable, but it can be used to absorb microplastics already in the environment and in wastewater that hasn’t yet been released into the environment.
A sustainable self-assembled supramolecular biomass fibrous foam for microplastic removal. Image: Science Advances//CC BY-NC 4.0
The substance is made from something called Ct-Cel biomass foam, which combines both cellulose from cotton and chitin from the bones (if you can call them that) of squids. Although squids are known for being flexible, to say the least, they do have a skeleton made of chitin that is aptly named the “pen.”
A team of researchers did their science magic and were able to stick the two things together at a molecular level. By doing so, they created something that can absorb microplastics in a few different ways: physical interception, electrostatic attraction, as well as multiple intermolecular interactions.
The scientists tested it in a variety of waters, from agriculture irrigation and lake water to still and coastal waters. In every instance, it was able to remove up to 95 percent of the microplastics present.
“The Ct-Cel foam has great potential to be used in the extraction of microplastic from complex water bodies,” concluded the authors. “Thus, our design principles would facilitate the future development of practical and sustainable strategies based on biomass foams to address microplastic pollution.”
