Tackling the Big Problem of Tiny Particles

Making microplastic testing commercially available

If not correctly recycled, plastic poses a major threat to our environment. Degrading into tiny particles, microplastics can remain in the environment for over hundreds, if not thousands, of years, infiltrating aquatic and marine ecosystems and contaminating the water we drink. Recognising the major global environmental problem that microplastics present, Eurofins is at the forefront of providing testing solutions to identify the prevalence of microplastics in our environment.

Microplastics are any particles of plastic fragment smaller than 5mm. Polluting our environment every day, microplastics contain or carry hazardous chemicals that have a negative impact on nature and human health, and so their ingestion through water, or foods such as fish or shellfish, is of particular concern. In 2018, The World Health Organization announced it was to launch a review into the potential risks of microplastic particles in drinking water.

Eurofins laboratories in Norway are at the forefront of developing testing methods to optimise microplastic testing, by combining the standard FTIR microscopic method testing with Pyrolytic-GC-MS testing. By their very nature, microplastic particles are just that – micro. Microplastic particles can be filtered from clean liquid samples with a vacuum filter, but the accuracy required to identify these particles is time consuming. The team is developing an innovative and bespoke filtration process to enhance process capacity by up to 6 times, and enhance process speed, delivering results in a commercially viable turnaround time, where they can be applied to make a real difference.

Several methods can be used to identify individual microplastic polymers – the most common being dye imaging and NOAA methodology under FTIR spectroscopy and microscopy technologies. Eurofins SFA Laboratories, based in Wisconsin, is the first laboratory to make these analytical methods commercially available, offering testing across several matrices including marine and drinking water sources and finished bottled water. This lab is currently developing methods to determine microplastic contamination in other food matrices such as fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants like seaweed.

Eurofins Softlines & Leather in Spain has developed a quantitative detection method to monitor microfiber-shedding during the washing process of synthetic textiles. The method simulates the washing process and analyses shed using electron microscopy. Across the network, Eurofins companies continue to undertake research to better understand the threat that microplastics pose to our environment and their prevalence in our ecosystems.

The science behind