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Experimenting on Settling Velocities of Negatively Buoyant Microplastics
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Researchers experimentally measured the settling velocities of negatively buoyant microplastics in water, filling a critical gap in understanding how dense plastic particles sink and distribute through the water column — essential for modeling where microplastics accumulate in marine and freshwater environments.
Presence of small plastic particles (< 5 mm), defined as microplastics, in the ocean and, especially, in coastal areas became evident in the last decade. From physical point of view, this fact indicates emergence of a new type of particles in the ocean. In contrast to the abundance of studies concerning sources, actual distribution and ecological effects of those particles, there are almost no detailed descriptions of physical mechanisms determining their distribution and behavior in the water column. Settling velocities of microplastics were measured in a series of experiments conducted in a 1-meter high glass tank filled with distilled water, in accordance with the typical methodology used in sedimentology. At first approximation, we supposed that the semi-empirical formulations developed for the natural sediments would be applicable to the microplastics. Results of preliminary experiments on microplastics of simple shapes justified this hypothesis. The majority of the implemented equations of settling velocity fitted well with the experimental data. Next step would be to test these formulations on the marine microplastic particles with greater variability in shapes. The research is supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project number 15-17-10020.
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Experimenting on Settling Velocities of Negatively Buoyant Microplastics
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Researchers conducted laboratory experiments to measure the settling velocities of negatively buoyant microplastics in water, providing fundamental physical data on how denser-than-water plastic particles sink through the water column. This data is critical for modeling where microplastics accumulate in coastal and ocean environments.
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This study developed and validated a precise laboratory method for measuring how fast small microplastic particles (10–400 µm) sink in water — a key parameter for predicting where microplastics accumulate in aquatic environments. The setup uses a temperature-controlled settling column with optical particle tracking and achieves high accuracy across a range of particle sizes and densities. Accurate settling velocity data for small microplastics is essential for modeling their transport and fate in rivers, lakes, and oceans, which informs risk assessments for aquatic organisms that live at different depths.
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