Article
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Tier 2
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Original research — experimental, observational, or case-control study. Direct primary evidence.
Environmental Sources
Remediation
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Photocatalytic TiO <sub>2</sub> Micromotors for Removal of Microplastics and Suspended Matter
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces2019
351 citations
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Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Score: 50
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0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Gold/nickel/TiO₂ photocatalytic micromotors were developed and shown to effectively attract, capture, and degrade microplastics under UV light by combining active motion with catalytic activity. The study presents a novel proof-of-concept approach to microplastic remediation at the microscale using self-propelled photocatalytic particles.
Environmental contamination is a major global challenge, and the effects of contamination are found in most habitats. In recent times, the pollution by microplastics has come to the global attention and their removal displays an extraordinary challenge with no reasonable solutions presented so far. One of the new technologies holding many promises for environmental remediation on the microscale are self-propelled micromotors. They present several properties that are of academic and technical interest, such as the ability to overcome the diffusion limitation in catalytic processes, as well as their phoretic interaction with their environment. Here, we present two novel strategies for the elimination of microplastics using photocatalytic Au@Ni@TiO<sub>2</sub>-based micromotors. We show that individual catalytic particles as well as assembled chains show excellent collection and removal of suspended matter and microplastics from environmental water samples.