Physicists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have developed and applied a method of identifying microplastic collected in sea waters, with a spectroscopy method that determines the chemical composition of contaminants regardless of their size.
Particles were identified and collected in the Baltic Sea using a new device called Plastic Explorer (PLEX), developed by physicists from the Northern Water Problems Institute at Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the Atlantic Department of Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The device pumps two to three cubic metres of seawater at any depth up to 100 metres, before being transported to a ship where all solid particles are filtered from it.
Using the device, researchers collected microplastic samples from different levels of the Baltic Sea, and gathered additional samples were gathered manually at the shore.
The samples underwent detailed study and researchers found 33 types of contaminants in the samples from the Baltic Sea, including nylon, polyethylene, cellulose and polypropylene.
Andrey Zyubin, a senior research associate at the Scientific and Educational Centre of the Baltic Federal University, said: “Spectral analysis of microscopic polymeric particles is a difficult task. The fluorescence of the dyes in that coloured polymers are most widely spread is a considerable issue.”“The polymer and the dye have a strong bond, and one has to create specific experimental conditions to minimise the fluorescence of the dye have a strong bond, and one has to create specific experimental conditions to minimise the fluorescence of the dye, and at the same time, to identify the polymer’s signal in the spectrum.”
