PublicationWater Advanced Treatment & Environmental Research Laboratory

High-Efficiency Microplastic Sampling Device Improved Using CFD Analysis
Year
2023
First author
Seonghyeon Ju
Co-author
Jongchan Yi, Junho Lee, Jiyoon Kim, Chaehwi Lim, Jihoon Lee, Kyungtae Kim
Corresponding author
Yeojoon Yoon
Journal
Sustainability
Vol
15
Page
3907
Abstract
Since microplastics are considered harmful to the human body, studies on their samplings, pretreatments and analyses environmental media, such as water, are continuously being conducted. However, a standard sampling and pretreatment method must be established, particularly because microplastics of a few micrometers in size are easily affected by external contamination. In this study, a microplastic sampling device was designed and developed to obtain a high recovery rate of microplastics and prevent plastics contamination during all processes. For the evaluation of the developed device, microplastic reference materials were produced and used, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed. This device has not only been applied to the relatively large previously studied microplastics (100 µm) but also to microplastics of approximately 20 µm that are vulnerable to contamination. A recovery rate of 94.2% was obtained using this device, and the particles were separated by filtration through a three-stage cassette. In conclusion, we propose a method to increase the accuracy and reproducibility of results for microplastic contamination in the environment. This method is able to consistently obtain and manage microplastics data, which are often difficult to compare using various existing methods