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Enabling a plastic-free microplastic hunt: "Rocket" improves detection of very small particles

Franziska Klaeger
Franziska Klaeger, IOW coordinator of the BMBF project MicroCatch_Balt, in front of "Rocket", the new contamination-free sampling device for microplastics in water. (Photo: IOW / K. Beck)

Environmental researchers at the IOW have developed a novel mobile device for recording microplastics in surface waters. They call it the “Rocket”, a design with which depending on the amount of suspended matter in the water up to 60 litres per minute can be sucked through four cartridge filters, and which is particularly advantageous for sampling the fine fraction of the microplastic in the range down to 10 µm. The scientists were specially challenged by the fact that plastic had to be avoided as far as possible. The successful results of the test phase have now been published by them in the international scientific journal “Water”.

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