An international consortium of researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind method that is affordable, portable and powerful in detecting harmful nanoplastic particles.
While microplastics are widely known, smaller nanoplastics pose greater risks as they infiltrate food, water, and even human organs, and have been difficult and costly to detect, according to a statement released Monday by Australia’s University of Melbourne.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne and the University of Stuttgart in Germany have developed a novel “optical sieve” to cost-effectively detect, classify and count nanoplastic particles in real-world environments, the statement said.