Description of the research line

Many studies point out that about 85% of marine pollution corresponds to plastics. The exponential consumption of plastics, its littering and improper recycling have contributed to the accumulation of plastic waste in the natural environment and water. Its low degradability contributes to its permanence in fresh and marine water over the years, breaking down into smaller pieces: microplastics (MP). Their presence in water has been recognized as an emerging environmental problem not only because it implies an environmental impact and damage to health after their incorporation into the food chain, but also because of their multidimensionality due to the different compositions of the plastics of origin, diversity of sizes of microplastics (MP), complexity to characterize them and their ability to adsorb harmful chemical pollutants. Furthermore, literature sources show that although wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) remove a high percentage of MP, these are retained in the sewage sludge, which is later used as fertilizer, and, in addition, the final effluent is not free of MP, since it has been estimated that more than 4 million particles of MP are discharged daily on average per WWTP.

In this line of research, techniques for the characterization and quantification of MP in aqueous streams are studied as well as the behavior of such MP in aqueous streams depending on their size and characteristics with the final objective of determining the removal performance after subjecting the aqueous streams contaminated with MP to electrochemical treatment. Once the different electrochemical technologies have been evaluated, their possible implementation in drinking water and wastewater treatment plants is addressed in order to guarantee a MP-free outflow.

Funding:

Project CT36/22-28-UCM-INV: Wastewater valorization using electrochemical technology and biotechnology