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Research Progress on Occurrence, Removal and Fate of Microplastics in WWTPs
Summary
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a major route by which microplastics reach rivers and oceans, yet they also remove a substantial portion of incoming particles. This review synthesizes data on microplastic abundance, shape, size, and polymer type across WWTP influent, effluent, and sludge, finding that fibres become proportionally more dominant in effluent while PP, PE, PA, and PET dominate throughout. Understanding WWTP performance is critical because sludge applied to farmland and treated effluent discharged to waterways both represent significant ongoing sources of microplastic contamination.
Abstract WWTPs are considered to be a major indirect source of MPs discharged into the environment. Characteristics of MPs in the influent and effluent water and sludge of WWTPs were analysed, including abundance, type, shape and size. Detailed comparisons were made to summarise the removal efficiency of each treatment process on MPs and the analysis of the factors affecting them, and to analyse the trend of MPs attribution in WWTPs. It is also concluded that the main shapes of MPs in the influent and effluent water of sewage plants are fibres and fragments, in which fibres account for an increased proportion in the outlet water, and the main polymer types are PP, PE, PA and PET; the shapes of MPs in sludge are mainly fibres, and the main polymer types are PP, PE and PET; and the removal of MPs mainly relies on the physical effects of adsorption, interception, flocculation, filtration, precipitation, and so on.
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