New sponge-like biomass foam absorbs 99.9% of microplastics

Microplastics are everywhere, which is why scientists have spent a lot of time trying to find a way to extract them safely.

Now that a super sponge-like foam that borrows the soaking abilities of cotton and squid could be a promising candidate, as it has been found to removes 98 to 99.9% of microplastics of the water samples studied.

According to , the foam is sustainable and environmentally adaptablewithout the Neuston zone destruction risks of some ocean coverage approaches.

According to the study, in the magazine Science Advancesin addition to targeting microplastics already present in the environment, it could be used to treat water in factories before it is released, working to reduce microplastics already present in nature and those that are released into it.

“It is expected that microplastics entering habitats terrestrial and aquatic waste have increased continuously 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,” the study authors wrote.

“O planet is under great threat from microplastics and aquatic ecosystems are the first to suffer, as they provide convenient locations for microplastics, which can combine with other contaminants and be ingested by various levels of organisms. The development of broadly adapted approaches for the remediation of microplastics in the aqueous environment is urgently needed.”

To respond to this need, they created a sponge-like substance called Ct-Cel biomass foamwhich combines two substances found in nature: accotton ellulose ea squid bone chitin.

Squid are famous for being soft, but inside their soft tissues is a small, pen-shaped skeleton made of chitin.

The two substances adhered well when the team broke their original hydrogen bonds and induced intermolecular interactions between cellulose and chitin, creating a stable structure with many activated hydrogen sites for microplastic adsorption.

By carrying out adsorption tests and computational studies, they observed that the structure could capture microplastics in various forms: physical interception, electrostatic attraction, as well as multiple intermolecular interactions.

Then, the Ct-Cel sponge was tested in four types of water: agricultural irrigation, lake water, standing water and coastal water and, after five impressive cycles, still had a high removal efficiency of over 95%.

The fact that it can be reused means it could very well be scalable and the researchers hope that, with some more testing, it could be rolled out to start combating the current microplastics crisis.

“A Ct-Cel foam has great potential to be used in the extraction of microplastics 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 combat microplastic pollution.”