Innovative hydrophilic tooth technology is implementing floating drones for the capture and removal of microplastics.
In recent years, microplastics have garnered significant attention due to their detection in tap and bottled water, as well as in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Conventional filtering technologies for water treatment have difficulty effectively filtering out microplastics of various sizes and shapes and are prone to clogging.
Additionally, recovering small particles requires extremely fine filter meshes, which increases pressure and drastically reduces filter efficiency. Furthermore, they are not effective in open spaces such as lakes, rivers, or oceans, where microplastic pollution is increasing.
Dr Seong Jin Kim and Myoung-Woon Moon of the Center for Extreme Materials Research at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed a new level of microplastic removal technology, offering a promising solution to this growing problem.
They have developed a floating drone equipped with hydrophilic tooth structures that leverage surface tension to skim microplastics. This came about after publishing a paper in the scientific journal Advanced Science.
The core of the team’s approach is the hydrophilic ratchet structure. This design forms a water bridge between the teeth due to its affinity for water, which maximizes the surface tension of the water to adhere the microplastics to the teeth.
This approach enables the removal of microplastics ranging in size from 1 micrometre (μm) to 4 millimetres, addressing the challenges traditional filtering technologies face with size and shape variability. It also ensures reliable operation without the risk of clogging.
The technology has achieved over 80 per cent recovery efficiency for various types of microplastics, including expanded polystyrene, polypropylene, and polyethylene. In particular, the floating drone’s hydrophilic ratchet structure can remove microplastics from large bodies of water such as oceans, lakes, and rivers in real time.
The drone can move autonomously and purify water quality like a household robot vacuum cleaner, showing its versatility beyond the limitations of existing fixed systems.
“This technology can be applied not only to floating drones but also to stationary systems such as water treatment filters in aquaculture farms,” said Dr Moon. “It can also be expanded into a home water treatment filter device that individuals can use in their daily lives.”
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