New Developments in the Removal of Microplastics and Nanoplastics from Wastewater

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 4032

Special Issue Editors


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School of Engineering and Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK
Interests: development of chemicals and optimization of unit processes for water/wastewater treatment; nutrient removal and recovery from wastewater; degradation of emerging micro-pollutants; environmental remediation
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Department of Chemical Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University (Formerly Ryerson University), 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Interests: photochemical reaction engineering, including photocatalysis, UV/hydrogen peroxide, fenton/photo-fenton, etc.; integration of advanced oxidation technologies and biological processes for wastewater treatment; effects of climate change on the quality and quantity of groundwater
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The pollution caused by micro- and nanoplastics in water and wastewater is of growing environmental concern due to their slow degradability, the biological ingestion of these plastics by aquatic living organisms, and the plastics’ carrier function of concentrating and transporting synthetic and persistent organic pollutants. As well as micro- and nanoplastics, chemical additives added to plastics during manufacture, which may leach out upon ingestion, will enter food chains and, potentially, could cause humans serious health problems. These wastes normally pass through wastewater treatment plants, and the extent of their removal is critical to setup a first barrier to prevent their inputs into rivers and marine environments. The development of efficient and affordable wastewater treatment technologies and understanding the working mechanisms to remove micro- and nanoplastics are, thus, important steps to protect our water resources, ecosystems and, ultimately, our health.

This Special Issue calls for research articles and review papers on the development of knowledge of the management and the removal of micro- and nanoplastics in wastewater and all relevant research in the area. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Distribution of micro- and nanoplastics in domestic sewage;
  • Development of biodegradation processes to treat micro- and nanoplastics;
  • Ways to prevent micro- and nanoplastics in sewage sludge from leaking into the environment;
  • Development of more accurate monitoring and analysing techniques and methods;
  • Advances in the regulations set up to manage the potential pollution caused by the micro- and nanoplastics;
  • Reduce, reuse and recycle plastics.

Prof. Dr. Jia-Qian Jiang
Prof. Dr. Mehrab Mehrvar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • distribution of microplastics
  • removal of micro- and nanoplastics
  • biodegradation process
  • analysing methods of micro- and nanoplastics
  • legislation
  • reduce, reuse and recycle plastics

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 7534 KiB  
Article
An Innovative Sorption Technology for Removing Microplastics from Wastewater
by Marketa Spacilova, Pavel Dytrych, Martin Lexa, Lenka Wimmerova, Pavel Masin, Robert Kvacek and Olga Solcova
Water 2023, 15(5), 892; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15050892 - 25 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3642
Abstract
This study is focused on technology development for microplastic removal from wastewater using a sorption process, which would be suitable not only as a tertiary stage of purification in wastewater treatment plants but also for other waters, e.g., process water and surface water. [...] Read more.
This study is focused on technology development for microplastic removal from wastewater using a sorption process, which would be suitable not only as a tertiary stage of purification in wastewater treatment plants but also for other waters, e.g., process water and surface water. Therefore, cheap natural materials such as zeolites and bentonites were tested as possible sorbents. This study aims not only at sorbent selection but also at their possible modification by a special water regime improving sorption efficiency and lifetime. Microplastic particles of the majority of common types of plastics were prepared by a newly developed abrasion technique from various plastic items used at home, thus microplastic particle sizes and shapes corresponded to the real microplastics found in waters. Based on results with high reproducibility, a novel method for microplastic characterization based on Raman spectroscopy in combination with SEM/EDX was developed. The removal of microplastics from waste water was tested not only at the laboratory scale but also in a developed semi-operational sorption unit at a real wastewater treatment plant throughout the year with the efficiency of over 90%. Full article
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