PITTCON 2021 Course: Analysis of Microplastics in Water

2/03/21 (Course outline)

Speaker:  Prof. Dr.  Damià Barceló – Catalan Institute for Water Research-ICRA

Description

The analysis of microplastics (MPs) pollution in water is identified as one major problem the world is currently facing. Nowadays, it is estimated that annually between 4 and 12 million tones of plastic go into the seas and oceans—with a forecast for them to outweigh the amount of fish in 2050. Based on the existing studies, the characterization of MPs in waters is still one of the remaining challenges because they can be easily confused with organic or other types of matter. Consequently, there is an urgent necessity to analyze MPs in water. In this short course MPs characterization using Raman and FT-IR spectroscopies and microscopies, pyrolysis and thermal desorption gas chromatography, and liquid chromatography/mass sepctrometry will be discussed . This short course also summarizes and provides updated data on the sources and occurrence, transport and fate of MPs in aquatic ecosystems. Few case studies in Europe, US and China will be reported.