University of Missouri college of engineering researchers have designed a water filter for keeping out microplastics and lead from tap water resources. The team of researchers designed the filter to fit on all tap water faucets using polyvinyl alcohol fibers, a safe fabric for water filtration.
Microplastics typically go unnoticed in different tap water sources, a problem that led Maryam Salehi and her team to task themselves with designing a water filter that could trap even the smallest of contaminants. Salehi says there’s growing concerns regarding the presence of tiny microplastics in tap water, typically smaller than a fifth of an inch.
“Our drinking water treatment processes are not designed to remove microplastics. However, they can remove a large portion of microplastics, but some of those can pass through the water treatment process and end up in the tap water. So that's why we wanted to generate a filter,” Salehi said.
Salehi and her team tested the water filter under controlled laboratory conditions. They used pure water and added different sized microplastics to it in order to test the effectiveness of the filter. Salehi says the team’s next steps are to test the filter under real-world conditions to see if it can tolerate removing multiple contaminants at the same time.
Matthew Nestor, the public information specialist for Columbia utilities, says that microplastics aren’t something the city is currently testing its water for. Nestor said that microplastics enter water sources after converting and downsizing from the plastic materials we use every day.
“You know, as water bottles deteriorate, It's in cigarette filters, so all those different kinds of things. Its getting into the water that way,” Nestor said. “You can filter it out, you know, at at the end point, but it's going to continue to get into the water.”
Although they’re difficult to remove, Nestor says that any initiative for cleaner water is a step in the right direction.
Salehi and her team published their findings in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science.
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