Microplastics are bad, and yet they’re everywhere. And because of their microscopic size, they’re very difficult to remove from other substances, like water. But there’s a new technology that could make it a lot easier — sound.
Scientists at Shinshu University have developed a device that uses sound to filter microplastics in water. Their microfluidic device has “three 1.5 mm-wide microchannels connected via four serial 0.7-mm-wide trifurcated junctions.” When water is placed in the channels and then subjected to ultrasonic waves, those waves push the microplastics in the water into separate channels where they can then be fished out.
“This proposed microfluidic device based on acoustic focusing can efficiently, rapidly and continuously collect 10–200 μm MPs without recirculation after pre-filtration of larger MPs through a mesh,” said lead researcher Professor Yoshitake Akiyama of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics at the Faculty of Textile Science and Technology at Shinshu University. “It can be installed in washing machines, factories and other sources of MPs for efficiently enriching and removing various-sized MPs from laundry and industrial wastewater. This will make it possible to prevent the discharge of MPs to the environment.”
