Innovative System To Be Integrated Into Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs) For The Separation and Photo-degradation Of Micro/Nano-plastics From Seawater

Micro/nanoplastics (MNPs) are new emerging pollutants that have attracted world-wide attention for their potential risk to marine species and humans. The presence of MNPs in seawater makes humans to be exposed through the consumption of fish or water containing these pollutants. MNPs could be dangerous to human health, causing lung infections and inflammation, stomach, liver and kidney damage, cardiovascular problems, brain damage, cancer and reproductive dysfunction. It is therefore very im-portant to find a solution to recover and degrade these pollutants from seawater. The main source of MNPs in the sea are the effluents coming from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), being the latter unable to effectively remove them efficiently. To address this issue, we propose a combined membrane separation and photocatal-ysis process for the recovery and degradation of MNPs. The results showed that the membrane (CA 2 KDa NF) used in the membrane separation step allowed a complete recovery of MNPs from water and an almost complete recovery of the initial performance after its regeneration. The recovered MNPs, treated with photocatalysis using various oxidants, resulted in a reduction in the initial size of MNPs and a weight loss of 13.52% after 48 hours [1]. This integrated approach can be integrated into WWTPs, offering a viable solution to mitigate plastic pollution in aquatic environments and protect human health.