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The Enhancement Effect and Mechanism of Natural Clay on the Removal of Polyethylene Microplastics by Electrocoagulation
Summary
Adding natural clay minerals — particularly montmorillonite — to an electrocoagulation water treatment process dramatically improved the removal of polyethylene microplastics, achieving 84.4% removal by helping plastic particles clump together into large, dense flocs that settle out of water. This low-cost enhancement (natural clay is cheap and widely available) could make electrocoagulation a more practical and effective technology for removing microplastics from industrial and municipal wastewater.
ABSTRACT This study introduces a novel strategy to enhance the removal of polyethylene microplastics (PE‐MPs) from wastewater by integrating natural clay minerals into the electrocoagulation (EC) process. The innovation lies in leveraging clay as a synergistic agent to address the inherent challenge of poor floc sedimentation. Experimental results demonstrated that all tested clays significantly improved PE‐MP removal, with montmorillonite (0.5 g/L) exhibiting the highest performance. By reducing the absolute zeta potential from −22.67 to +9.85 mV within 3 min of addition, montmorillonite promoted charge neutralization and facilitated the formation of larger, denser flocs via a “net capture and sweeping” mechanism. Under optimal conditions, this synergistic process achieved a high PE‐MP removal efficiency of 84.4%. Kinetic and isotherm analysis revealed that the adsorption process followed pseudo‐first‐order kinetics and the Langmuir monolayer adsorption model. This study confirms that the integration of low‐cost natural clay with EC is a highly efficient and promising technology for microplastic remediation.
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