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Identification of microplastics in wastewater after cascade filtration using Pyrolysis-GC-MS.

Authors :
Funck M
Yildirim A
Nickel C
Schram J
Schmidt TC
Tuerk J
Source :
MethodsX [MethodsX] 2019 Dec 19; Vol. 7, pp. 100778. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Dec 19 (Print Publication: 2020).
Publication Year :
2019

Abstract

The combination of a representative microplastic sampling method and a fast-quantitative analysis using Pyrolysis-GC-MS (Py-GC-MS) for investigation of the microplastic load and mass balances is presented in this work. A representative microplastic filtration requires a method allowing quick extraction of the sample. The developed steel based cascadic microplastic filtration uses steel basket filters with mesh sizes of 100 μm, 50 μm and 10 μm and a mean recovery of 86 % without cross contamination was achieved. Thermoanalytical methods have the advantage of minimal sample preparation with short analysis times. The presented platinum filament-based Py-GC-MS method requires little sample preparation and quantification limits for polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene (PE) were 0.03 μg and 1 μg absolute, respectively. The relative standard deviation of the analytical method is 11 %. The combined method allows representative sampling and analysis of MP from water bodies and waste water treatment plants within 48 h. •Presentation of a validated steel based cascadic microplastic filtration plant.•Fast and reproduceable Py-GC-MS analysis method for microplastic.•Py-GC-MS allows microplastic analysis with little sample preparation.<br /> (© 2020 The Authors.)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2215-0161
Volume :
7
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
MethodsX
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
32300541
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2019.100778