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In: biomagnification of nanoplastics, desalinization plants, Great Lakes, Haoran Wei, Lake Explorer II, Lake Mendota, Mohan Qin, nanoplastics, NOAA, Sarah Janssen, semipermeable membranes, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Reverse osmosis membranes could revolutionize nanoplastic sampling in the Great Lakes

Nanoplastics continue to build up, largely unnoticed, in the world’s bodies of water and inside people’s bodies. Image of Lake Mendota by Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant.

The target is small. Very small. Researchers have shined the light on environmental dangers posed by microplastics – small pieces of plastic from clothing and packaging that pollute waterways. Now, however, they are also focusing on nanoplastics, which are even smaller plastic particles – invisible to the naked eye and even under a regular microscope, and smaller in diameter than a human hair.

Linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in people, nanoplastics continue to build up, largely unnoticed, in the world’s bodies of water and inside people’s bodies. They’re everywhere. Researchers think nanoplastics may be more harmful than microplastics because, “The smaller their size is, the higher toxicity they have,” said Haoran Wei, assistant professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There’s a higher surface area on nanoplastic particles, which can accumulate more toxic chemicals and other contaminants on their surfaces. They’re small enough to get into living cells, so can directly harm creatures in the Great Lakes.”

Unfortunately, the presence and distribution of nanoplastics in the Great Lakes is still largely unknown. One reason is that current sampling methods are onerous – requiring collection and transport of hundreds to thousands of gallons of water from the lakes into the lab for analysis.

There’s got to be a better way, right? Thanks to Wisconsin Sea Grant funding, Wei and Mohan Qin, also an assistant professor at the department of civil and environmental engineering at UW-Madison, are working to solve the problem by looking at a new use for an old technology.

Haoran Wei (right) explains how microplastic and nanoplastic samples are analyzed in the lab while Ziyan Wu, a Ph.D. student on the project, watches. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

Desalinization plants have long used semipermeable membranes to take salt out of seawater through reverse osmosis. The membranes, made of polymers, have tiny pores that allow pressurized water to flow through them but catch things like salt. They can also catch nanoplastics. Qin and Wei are developing a portable membrane filtration device that researchers can use on a ship to process large volumes of water out on the lake instead of bringing the water back to the lab. They’ll collect the nanoplastics on a series of membranes and just bring those, or a concentrated water sample, back to the lab for analysis.

Sarah Janssen, a supervisory research chemist with the U.S. Geological Survey, is going to help Qin and Wei with the project this summer in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to collect water samples on their Lake Explorer II research vessel from lakes Superior and Ontario. But before they head out on the ship, they’ll test the membrane filter device with purified water in the lab and later with water from some local lakes, like Lake Mendota.

Mohan Qin describes environmental issues caused by nanoplastics while standing next to a different plastics research project conducted atop the Limnology Building at UW-Madison, which looked at how light degrades microplastics. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

Wei said that if successful, their project will be the first to develop a sequential membrane filtration sampler that collects and concentrates nanoplastics from a large volume of lake water. “And we definitely will be the first ones to carry this filter on a boat in connection with nanoplastics,” he said.

Qin and Wei will be helped by four college students and hope this method can be used by other agencies and water industries for microplastic and nanoplastic sampling. They also plan to work with Sea Grant’s Emerging Contaminants Scientist, Gavin Dehnert, to bring information about the project to Tribal communities and to participate in events like UW-Madison’s Day at the Capitol. “All my students love Capitol Days,” said Qin. “They will have the opportunity to work with people from the real world and talk about the problems researchers are working on.”

This project is related to a microplastics and food web project that Wei leads which was recently funded by NOAA. He said the goal of that project is to figure out if microplastics and nanoplastics can get into the Great Lakes food web. “We want to see if they get biomagnified up the food chain,” Wei said. “We’re going to do a lot of analysis and bioaccumulation experiments.”

The post A new use for an old technology first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

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News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/a-new-use-for-an-old-technology/

Marie Zhuikov

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In: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, fashion industry clothing waste, Ginny Carlton, Haoran Wei, Inflation Reduction Act, marine debris, Marine Debris Challenge, Marine Debris Community Action Coalition, microplastics, Milwaukee, Milwaukee River Keeper, Mount Mary University, nanoplastics, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Microplastics may be colorful, but can cause environmental and food web issues in the Great Lakes. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

A project that deals with microplastic accumulation in the Great Lakes food web and another that will work with Milwaukee’s fashion community to reduce microplastic debris in waterways were awarded funding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the Marine Debris Challenge and Community Action Coalition competitions.

The first project, “Pinpointing the key drivers for the bioaccumulation of nano- and low-micrometer microplastics in the Great Lakes using a modular pretreatment and plasmonic imaging platform,” is led by Haoran Wei from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wei and his team will create a standardized, high-speed testing system to study how tiny microplastics and nanoplastics appear and build up in living organisms in the Great Lakes.

The second project, “Fashioning a model response: Educating members of the fashion industry about microplastics to reduce marine debris in local waters,” is led by Ginny Carlton with Wisconsin Sea Grant. Carlton and partners Milwaukee River Keeper and Mount Mary University will offer workshops for college fashion department faculty, university students and K-12 teachers regarding reducing polyester clothing fiber waste. They will also pilot and launch an online short course for educators about marine debris prevention and the fashion industry.

Funding for these projects and 19 others awarded comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The post Two Wisconsin marine debris projects funded by NOAA first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

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News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/two-wisconsin-marine-debris-projects-funded-by-noaa/

Marie Zhuikov

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In: Andrew Glasgow, Freshwater@UW Summer Research Opportunities Program, Haoran Wei, PFAS, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Water Science and Engineering Laboratory

An evening view of Lake Mendota from outside UW-Madison’s Water Science and Engineering Laboratory. Image credit: Andrew Glasgow

This summer, 31 students from across the country were chosen for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Freshwater@UW Summer Research Opportunities Program, which is affiliated with Wisconsin Sea Grant, the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School. Many of the students provided reflections on what they learned. We’ll share several over the coming months. Here’s Andrew Glasgow, an undergraduate in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

When people hear that I spent my summer on the shore of Madison’s Lake Mendota, many imagine leisurely days basking in the sunshine. While many of my evenings were spent outdoors with colleagues and new friends, the bulk of my daylight hours were instead spent indoors at UW-Madison’s lakeside Water Science and Engineering Laboratory—where matters far removed from summer fun weighed upon my mind.

As part of the Freshwater@UW research program this summer, I worked to develop an inexpensive, accessible method for detection of PFAS in drinking water. PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are a group of over 4,000 toxic, synthetic substances with high persistence and ubiquity in the environment and drinking water. However, due to the cost and time constraints of current detection methods, many communities—especially those without access to financial resources—cannot monitor their water supply for PFAS contamination. As such, these communities may unknowingly continue to ingest high levels of PFAS, potentially leading to cancer and other health issues. Through my involvement in this project, I sought to help protect human health by combating this state of affairs.

The Ramen Spectrometer used by Glasgow in Wei’s lab. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

My mentor, Haoran Wei, and I hoped to detect PFAS using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS): a rapid, inexpensive technique that uses a laser to detect different molecules. While prepared for failure, we had high hopes for success; SERS’ usage had facilitated the detection of other micropollutants in the past. And to our great encouragement, our hopes seemed to be affirmed by the initial results. With further research, we discovered that these groundbreaking results were not as they seemed; our method had been detecting another substance instead and was thus unsuccessful.

One half of the program had passed when we made this discovery—one month spent performing dangerous and tedious work, in service of an illusion waiting to be shattered. Considering the mental tolls of PFAS work, learning the truth of our results was a disorienting blow, as our confidence and endurance of those struggles now felt purposeless. Not only would our work not improve the current detection methods for PFAS in drinking water, but it could likely not be published for other researchers (despite its value), due to publication bias and the optics of “failed” results.

While my mentor and I still attempted to analyze why PFAS could not be detected, technological limitations unfortunately prevented final confirmation after weeks of analysis. Our project ended on this anticlimactic note.

Despite this conclusion, however, if given the opportunity to live the entire experience over, I would do so in a heartbeat. Although the final research outcome was disappointing, I developed essential skills and learned powerful lessons that I will carry throughout my career. Even more valuable was the opportunity to become integrated into a research community—which, as I discovered, is an opportunity to cherish. When there are new undergraduate and graduate friends to connect with, to mutually share excitements and failures, the weight of any personal defeat pales in comparison. I am very grateful for both the research and the friendships that the Freshwater@UW program provided me.

 

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