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ISO 5667-27:2025 Is Not Directly Applicable to Intact-Liquid Field Measurement (EcoExposureTM): The Role of Filtration for Laboratory-Sampling in Microplastics / Nanoplastics Analysis
Summary
This paper is a technical explainer, not a health study, it clarifies that a new international standard for collecting water samples to test for microplastics doesn't apply to a different type of tool (EcoExposure™) that measures microplastics directly in water on the spot, without filtering out particles first. Why it matters: as tools for detecting microplastics in our water become more common, it's important that testing methods are matched to the right technology, so results people rely on to understand their exposure are actually accurate and trustworthy.
ISO 5667-27:2025 provides guidance for sampling suspended microplastics in water using approaches including grab sampling, cascade filtration, and net sampling. Importantly, the standard addresses sample collection rather than analytical measurement and does not establish methods for chemical analysis, physical characterization, digestion, or other downstream analytical procedures. The sampling architecture described in ISO 5667-27:2025 is principally relevant to workflows in which collected water or concentrated particulate material subsequently undergoes transportation, storage, preparation, and laboratory analysis. Filtration, cascade filtration, and net sampling are useful in this context because they facilitate particle collection, concentration, size fractionation, or recovery for downstream laboratory instrumentation. This architecture differs fundamentally from an intact-liquid field measurement platform in which the primary analytical measurement occurs directly at or near the point of sample collection. EcoExposure™ Water is being developed under this latter architecture. This technical note explains why ISO 5667-27:2025 is therefore not directly applicable as the primary sampling workflow for EcoExposure™, while remaining relevant to complementary laboratory analyses that require particle collection or concentration.