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The role of abiotic and biotic aging in the elimination of polyethylene microplastics by coagulation
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This study investigated how the natural weathering and biological aging of polyethylene microplastics — through sunlight, temperature, mechanical wear, and bacterial biofilm formation — affects how well water treatment plants can remove them using a coagulation process. Biologically aged plastics coated with bacterial biofilm were removed most efficiently, reaching up to 67% removal compared to around 30% for fresh plastics. Understanding how aging changes microplastic behavior in treatment plants is important for improving removal strategies, since most real-world plastics entering water systems have already been weathered.
Coagulation has been extensively examined for the removal of microplastics from water; however, to date, there is a significant lack of knowledge regarding the removal efficiency of aged microplastics. To address this challenge, this study investigates the effects of abiotic and biotic aging on microplastic properties and coagulation efficiency. Mechanical, thermal, biological, and combined mechanical-biological aging of polyethylene (PE) were conducted. The influence of time (7, 14, 28, and 60 days), pH (3, 7, and 10), temperature (5, 25, and 60 °C), and the presence of sand particles and sunlight was analyzed. All aging factors affected removal efficiency, which ranged from 27.93% to 56.79% for mechanical aging, 26.98% to 57.80% for thermal aging, 59.52% to 66.97% for biotic aging, and 44.92% to 65.48% for combined mechanical-biotic aging. The most significant effect was observed following biotic incubation of PE with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, due to biofilm formation on the PE surface. After 7, 14, and 28 days of incubation, the measured biofilm amounts were 70.2, 121.6, and 149.6 mg/g, respectively. Biofilm formation led to an increase in sinking ratio from 0.01 for pristine PE to 0.068, 0.07, and 0.1425 after 7, 14, and 28 days, respectively. FT-IR analysis revealed signals at approximately 2100 cm (CN group) and 1100 cm (nucleic acid residues), along with increased carbonyl index values, indicating biofilm formation during incubation with P. aeruginosa. LDIR analysis showed a reduction in PE particle size following thermal and mechanical aging, whereas an increase in particle size was observed after biological aging.
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Researchers used palladium-doped nanoplastics as tracers to compare how environmentally aged and pristine nanoplastics behave during water treatment coagulation. They found that ozone-aged nanoplastics developed more oxygen-containing surface groups, making them harder to remove through conventional coagulation, while solar-aged particles showed mainly physical changes. The study suggests that current drinking water treatment processes may be less effective at removing aged nanoplastics than fresh ones.
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Chemical and physical aging of polyethylene microplastics significantly alters their surface chemistry and morphology, with oxidative treatments like KMnO₄ boosting coagulation removal efficiency to 79% while methanol and H₂O₂ had neutral or inhibitory effects. Because environmental aging is ubiquitous, these findings reveal that real-world microplastic removal performance in water treatment may differ substantially from predictions based on pristine particles.
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