This new nanotech could help clean up Earth’s microplastics

This new nanotech could help clean up Earth’s microplastics:

Microplastics are everywhere–the ocean, the air, marine animals, pristine lakes, our food and, as recently discovered, in human excrement. But because they are so tiny — 5 millimeters across or smaller — microplastics are challenging to remove.

 To overcome this situation scientists have designed reusable nano-sized reactors — called nanocoils — that can trigger a microplastic breakdown. Nanocoils are an emerging hybrid material, combining a metal that causes a chemical reaction with a well-studied piece of nanotechnology called a carbon nanotube. In this case, chemists mixed carbon for making nanotubes with metal called manganese. When combined, the manganese metal and the carbon react and grow in a helical direction to form coils, hollow nanostructures — hence, “nanocoil” — that measure in lengths of about half the width of a human hair.  Once formed, the nanocoils were mixed with microplastics isolated from store-bought facial cleansers, which feature microplastic exfoliants that often get washed down drains.  The nanocoils don’t break down microplastics. Instead, the manganese inside the nanocoils generates free radicals — short-lived, highly reactive oxygen molecules — that attack the microplastics and cause them to fragment into smaller pieces.  Eventually, these microplastic fragments are converted to carbon dioxide gas and water, said Xiaoguang Duan, an environmental chemist at Adelaide University who co-led the study. The team weighed the microplastic sample before and after the reaction and then calculated how much carbon was lost due to carbon dioxide evaporation. A nanocoil acts as a case for the manganese — a stable container that can prevent the metal from leaching into the environment and becoming a source of pollution in itself. When the reaction was done, the team used a magnet to pull out the metallic nanocoils from the mixture.

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Source Credit: PBS NewsHour