Invisible microplastics polluting Sabarmati

The study conducted by Discipline of Earth Sciences of IIT-Gandhinagar on micro plastics in the river system have found out that the microplastics (which are not visible to  naked eye) is polluting the Sabarmati river.

       The microplastics are those plastics that have less than 5 millimetres in size.

researchers isolated two groups of microplastic — small and  ..

       The researchers have found of two groups of microplastics from Sabarmati river:

• size range of 75 micrometres to  212 micrometres
• size range of 212 micrometres to 4 millimetres

       The sources of micro plastics are improper waste disposal, insufficient waste management, urban runoffs and washing machine effluent.

researchers isolated two groups of microplastic.

Tiny sphere can trap water pollutant-  source The Hindu

• Scientists have created tiny sphere that can catch and destroy bis phenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical used to make plastics that often contaminates water.
•  BPA is commonly used to coat the insides food cans, bottle tops and water supply lines and once it was a component of baby bottles also.
• BPA that seeps into  food and drink is considered safe in low dose but more usage can affect the  health contributing to high blood pressure.
•  A sphere similar to Venus' flytrap of particles for water remediation was developed by  a university based on US.
• The micron-sized spheres is like a tiny flower like collections of titanium dioxide petals.
• This flexible petals provide plenty of surface area to anchor cylcodextrin which is used in food and drugs.
• It is basically a two faced structure- Hydrophobic cavity and Hydrophilic outer surface.
• BPA is hydrophobic,once it is trapped the relative oxygen species produced by the sphere degrades BPA to harmless chemicals.
• It is found that 200mg of the sphere per liter of contaminated water degraded 90% of BPA in an hour.
• The size of the particle is less than 100 nanometers.