How sound waves can help remove microplastics from the ocean

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sonido al oceano.jpg
sonido al oceano.jpg

Microplastics are pieces of plastic so small that they are barely visible to the naked eye. These contaminants are a serious problem for marine ecosystems and human health. Every year, tons of plastics are dumped into the oceans, much of it disintegrating into microplastics that are ingested by marine animals and end up in our food chain.

In this context, scientists from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology have developed an innovative device to remove microplastics from water. The most common filtration method for removing microplastics does not always manage to capture all the tiny particles, so these scientists have chosen to use sound waves for their removal.

How the device works

The prototype designed by the team is made up of 8mm steel tubing and a transducer, which is a device that converts one form of energy into another. When you activate the transducer, pulsating sound waves are sent through the metal tube. This causes the plastic particles to move and vibrate, allowing small pieces to collect in the flowing water as it passes through the system.

The device is designed to collect microplastics of different sizes and can be scaled to filter large volumes of water. Previously, scientists carried out similar experiments in the laboratory, but with a smaller volume of water and microplastics only ten microns wide. Most microplastics in the environment, according to the researchers, are slightly larger than this size.

Test scores

The team conducted initial experiments using polystyrene, polyethylene, and polymethyl methacrylate microplastics. The two tubes worked together to separate microplastics of different sizes. The device was able to remove more than 70% of the smallest microplastics and 82% of the largest microplastics, according to the results. They also tested the prototype by collecting water from the Rio Grande and a pond on the New Mexico Tech University campus.

The device costs approximately seven cents per hour and a half of operation to clean one liter of water. After these initial experiments, the team plans to test the prototype on a larger scale, focusing on cleaning ocean water.

Undoubtedly, great news to clean up what we have dirty, like good educated children.

More information at www.eurekalert.org

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Brian Adam
Professional Blogger, V logger, traveler and explorer of new horizons.