Material identification and imaging of microplastics when dispersed in water using near-infrared light toward combination with a flow cell

Abstract The Earth’s environment and the health of living things are being negatively impacted by the microplastics in the oceans. We have studied a material identification method that could be performed using NIR light when the microplastics are inside water. The method is developed toward combining a flow cell to reduce the processes of drying and manually placing the microplastics in a measurement setup. The correlation coefficient was used to identify the material by comparing the absorbance spectrum with the reference data of polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polymethyl methacrylate. The sizes, shapes, and materials of the microplastics were successfully identified.