Continuous detection of microplastics

The devel­op­ment of a con­tin­u­ous detec­tion method of microplas­tics in water is fund­ed by the Veo­lia Foun­da­tion. Thanks to this gen­er­ous fund­ing com­mit­ment, the non-prof­it green­tech com­pa­ny Water 3.0 can once again increase its abil­i­ty to act against the glob­al envi­ron­men­tal prob­lem of microplas­tics. In recent years, for exam­ple, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped its own detec­tion method based on flu­o­res­cent label­ing, which promis­es to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly sim­pler, faster and more cost-effec­tive than con­ven­tion­al detec­tion meth­ods for microplas­tics in water. While this is in final val­i­da­tion, it is already being devel­oped into a rapid test for use in aquat­ic envi­ron­ments. The new project for con­tin­u­ous detec­tion of microplas­tics in water bod­ies and water purifi­ca­tion now clos­es the circle.

Those who want to find microplastics seem to find them

Microplas­tics have now been detect­ed from Arc­tic ice to the deep sea, from the Danube to Mount Ever­est, from mus­sels to fish to human intestines, pla­cen­ta and most recent­ly in blood. Reports of this are mak­ing head­lines. For many peo­ple, they are fright­en­ing and dis­turb­ing. On the one hand, they are jus­ti­fied — after all, they show the world­wide extent of this envi­ron­men­tal prob­lem. On the oth­er hand, these find­ings should be treat­ed with cau­tion. Their sig­nif­i­cance is lim­it­ed. This is main­ly because there is as yet no stan­dard­ized detec­tion method for microplas­tics. Stud­ies are car­ried out using a wide vari­ety of ana­lyt­i­cal meth­ods and equip­ment, mak­ing the data almost impos­si­ble to com­pare. In addi­tion, most val­ues are based on ran­dom sam­ples. This is because exist­ing detec­tion meth­ods are com­plex, time-con­sum­ing and expen­sive and are thus only used to a lim­it­ed extent. As a result, esti­mates are made about expo­sure sce­nar­ios instead of evi­dence-based val­ues. The lack of stan­dard­iza­tion and pos­si­bil­i­ty for long-term mea­sure­ments result in lit­tle fact-based knowl­edge about the extent and behav­ior of microplas­tics in our environment.

Application-oriented research closes gaps

Detec­tion of microplas­tics has been a focus of Water 3.0’s research and devel­op­ment efforts since 2020. As the sci­en­tists advanced the devel­op­ment of their inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy for remov­ing microplas­tics from water, they were vis­i­bly con­front­ed with the short­com­ings of cur­rent detec­tion meth­ods relat­ed to microplas­tics. In order to work effi­cient­ly and in a data-dri­ven man­ner, the team felt com­pelled to devel­op their own detec­tion method that would enable sim­ple, fast and cost-effec­tive water analy­sis and mon­i­tor­ing of removal process­es in munic­i­pal and indus­tri­al waste­water. Exist­ing knowl­edge from the field of flu­o­res­cent label­ing was tak­en up and fur­ther devel­oped in con­junc­tion with stan­dard­ized micro­scop­ic eval­u­a­tion. The approach proved to be suit­able and is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing final eval­u­a­tion as part of the 4th purifi­ca­tion stage plus research project. In anoth­er research project REC-MP, the method is already being adapt­ed as a sim­ple and cost-effec­tive rapid test for sam­pling water bod­ies. In the project now fund­ed by the Veo­lia Foun­da­tion, the aim is to fur­ther devel­op the method into a con­tin­u­ous analy­sis tool.

The potential of continuous microplastic detection

A sim­ple and cost-effec­tive con­tin­u­ous detec­tion instru­ment for microplas­tics in water will pro­vide area-wide, har­mo­nized sam­pling and thus qual­i­fied data col­lec­tion of microplas­tic pol­lu­tion in sur­face waters, sea­wa­ter and waste­water. Evi­dence-based, it will be pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy loca­tions with high lev­els of pol­lu­tion and where spe­cif­ic action mea­sures are imme­di­ate­ly desir­able due to their loca­tion, e.g. adja­cent ground­wa­ter resources or nature con­ser­va­tion areas.

“We find microplas­tics in our inland waters, on the coasts and in the oceans. This is not with­out impact on ecosys­tems. We want to under­stand the envi­ron­men­tal risks of this new type of pol­lu­tion and mit­i­gate them. Our foun­da­tion project aims to pro­vide real-time analy­sis of microplas­tics in water,” says Boris Lesjean, Head of Inno­va­tion Veo­lia Ger­many, describ­ing the goals of the project fund­ing. “This is an impor­tant step in deep­en­ing our knowl­edge of microplas­tics in water bod­ies and defin­ing suit­able pro­tec­tive mea­sures,” con­tin­ues Lesjean, who is a foun­da­tion spon­sor for the project on Veo­li­a’s part and will close­ly accom­pa­ny the scientists.

Responsible, solution-oriented, worthy of support

Con­tin­u­ous detec­tion of microplas­tics in water bod­ies pro­vides valu­able data on the sources and dis­tri­b­u­tion of microplas­tics. This is not only high­ly rel­e­vant sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly, but also in terms of soci­ety as a whole. “One of the Veo­lia Foun­da­tion’s fund­ing pri­or­i­ties is the pro­tec­tion of water as a vital resource. The cur­rent Water 3.0 project exem­plar­i­ly com­bines sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise with the prac­ti­cal chal­lenges of the threat posed to our waters by microplas­tics — this is absolute­ly wor­thy of fund­ing!”, says Sylke Freuden­thal, Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Offi­cer at Veo­lia Ger­many and mem­ber of the Veo­lia Foun­da­tion Board of Direc­tors, explain­ing the deci­sion to fund the research project.

“Thanks to the Veo­lia Foun­da­tion’s three-year fund­ing com­mit­ment, we will be able to advance our detec­tion method for microplas­tics in such a way that it gen­er­ates real added val­ue for sci­ence, pol­i­tics, indus­try, soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment. It is this kind of solu­tion-ori­ent­ed and respon­si­ble research for which our heart beats at Water 3.0.”

- Dr. Katrin Schuhen, Man­ag­ing Director