Identification and quantification of microplastics in effluents of wastewater treatment plant by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)

In this research, the presence of microplastics was detected through a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis of three wastewater treatment plants. One of these plants applied only a preliminary treatment stage while the others applied up to a secondary treatment stage to evaluate their effectiveness. The results showed the presence of polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which were classified as fragments, fibers or granules. During the evaluation of the plants, it was determined that the preliminary treatment did not remove more than 58% of the microplastics, while the plants applying up to a secondary treatment with activated sludge achieved microplastic removal effectiveness between 90% and 96.9%.

• Autores: Hernández Fernández, Joaquín; Cano, Heidis; Guerra, Yoleima; Puello Polo, Esneyder; Ríos-Rojas, John Fredy; Vivas-Reyes, Ricardo; Oviedo, Juan
• Tipo de recurso: Article of journal
• Fecha de publicación: 2022
• Institución: Corporación Universidad de la Costa
• Repositorio: REDICUC - Repositorio CUC
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.cuc.edu.co:11323/9325
• Acceso en línea: https://hdl.handle.net/11323/9325; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14094920; https://repositorio.cuc.edu.co/
• Palabra clave: Efficiency; Wastewater treatment plants; Microplastics; Pollution; Removal
• Rights: openAccess
• License: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.