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Researchers from University of Waterloo have developed a 3D printed water filtration column made from biodegradable plastic that removed 90% of microplastics from contaminated water using nothing but gravity.
The system combines surface porosity engineering with pressure-sensitive adhesive coatings to capture microplastics, including particles below 10 micrometers, although removal was less effective at that size.
The 90% figure, though, comes with context that matters more than the number itself. What the researchers actually built is a proof of concept for layering three distinct capture mechanisms on top of one another, each one compensating for the limits of the last.
The study starts with