The use of plastic products has become an indispensable part of our lives. However, due to improper discharge into the ocean and their prevalence in food storage use, humans ingest microplastics (MP) from consuming seafood or drinking water, which poses safety hazards. Furthermore, the existing MP separation methods, such as density separation and filtration, are limited by low efficiency. For micro-particle separation, inertial microfluidics using spiral channels has attracted great interest because of its excellent ability to concentrate particles of specific sizes with the balance of inertial lift force and Dean drag force in a fully enclosed system. Here, we designed and optimized an MP concentrator (MPC) to simultaneously enrich and remove MP for environmental research and water purification. The MPC achieves >90% recovery of MPs from seawater samples and polypropylene food container extracts and also obtained MP counts (per gram wet sediment) for environmental ocean floor samples within the range previously achieved via filtration methods. Moreover, the MPC can purify the sample by concentrating MP to a minimal volume at an output by introducing a feedback loop. Overall, our study provides an innovative technology that simultaneously enriches and filters MP from various samples with minimal equipment requirements, thereby providing a low-cost and convenient method compatible with on-site applications, and has the potential for routine use in MP research, especially for areas with limited resources.

中文翻译：

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用于快速去除环境样品中微塑料的便携式净化系统

塑料制品的使用已成为我们生活中不可缺少的一部分。然而，由于不当排放到海洋及其在食品储存使用中的普遍存在，人类从食用海鲜或饮用水中摄入微塑料（MP），这构成了安全隐患。此外，现有的MP分离方法，例如密度分离和过滤，效率低下。对于微粒分离，使用螺旋通道的惯性微流控技术引起了人们的极大兴趣，因为它具有在全封闭系统中平衡惯性升力和迪安曳力的优异能力，能够集中特定尺寸的颗粒。在此，我们设计并优化了 MP 浓缩器 (MPC)，可同时富集和去除 MP，用于环境研究和水净化。 MPC 从海水样品和聚丙烯食品容器提取物中实现了 > 90% 的 MP 回收率，并且还获得了环境海底样品的 MP 计数（每克湿沉积物），其范围在之前通过过滤方法实现的范围内。此外，MPC 可以通过引入反馈回路将 MP 在输出处浓缩至最小体积来纯化样品。总的来说，我们的研究提供了一种创新技术，可以以最少的设备要求同时从各种样品中富集和过滤 MP，从而提供一种低成本且方便的方法，与现场应用兼容，并且具有在 MP 研究中常规使用的潜力，特别是对于资源有限的地区。