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Mechanisms and the Engineering Approaches for the Degradation of Microplastics

ACS ES&T Engineering 2021 172 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 50 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Aziz-Ur-Rahim Bacha, Iqra Nabi, Liwu Zhang

Summary

This review provided a comprehensive overview of current microplastic degradation methods, including mechanical, chemical, photocatalytic, and biological approaches, evaluating engineering strategies for efficient microplastic treatment and removal.

Microplastic waste is an emerging global issue due to its environmental effect of accumulation in ecosystems, and waste managing systems have given rise to its presence in the aquatic environment. It is gaining attention due to its persistent nature and potential adverse effects on living organisms. There is an urgent need for the development of efficient degradation methods for microplastic (MP) treatment. In this review, a comprehensive overview of current methods for the degradation of MPs, such as biological, photo, chemical, and mechanical degradation have been summarized and discussed in detail. All the fundamental mechanisms of MP degradation in the natural environment are linked with remediation approaches to accelerate these mechanisms that occur in nature. Decomposition efficiency with the applied system’s limitations has also been mentioned. Furthermore, the current knowledge gaps about MP decomposition, and future research directions are proposed. This work offers a summary of current degradation methods for MP decomposition and provides a reference for the control of MP pollution.

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