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Microplastic removal across ten drinking water treatment facilities and distribution systems
Summary
Researchers characterized microplastic removal across ten drinking water treatment facilities and found that conventional municipal treatment achieved greater than 97.5% removal, primarily through granular media filtration or ultrafiltration. Untreated source waters contained between approximately 1,200 and 7,200 microplastic particles per liter, with polypropylene, polyethylene, and polyamide being the most common types. The findings provide valuable data on microplastic exposure through drinking water and the effectiveness of existing treatment processes.
The performance of conventional and advanced drinking water treatment processes for the removal of microplastics is poorly understood due to the use of a wide range of methods for sample collection, isolation, and analysis that make direct comparison among studies challenging. In this study, microplastic (>2 µm) removal across ten drinking water treatment facilities, as well as their presence in source waters and distribution systems, was characterized. Municipal drinking water treatment facilities achieved >97.5% removal, primarily due to chemically assisted granular media filtration or ultrafiltration. In untreated source waters, concentrations ranged from 1193 ± 64 to 7185 ± 64 particles/L, with polypropylene, polyethylene, polyamide, and plastic copolymers representing the most common polymer types identified. These findings provide insight regarding microplastic exposure via drinking water, as well as treatment process performance for their removal which may be used to inform the development and implementation of future regulations and/or guidelines.