Identification and Description of Drinking Water Microplastics
摘要
This study determines the presence, shape, color, and polymer type of Microplastics (MPs) in all four different types of selected water samples (mineral water, tap water, packaged container water for household, and RO-filtered water). Physical morphology of MPs was determined by using a fluorescence microscope by staining the water samples with Rhodamine B (RhB) in three different solvents (ethanol, distilled water, and acetone). Fiber and fragment shape were reported among the samples, and the dominant colors obtained were orange, green, and red after staining with RhB under a fluorescence microscope. By comparing the results on the abundances of MPs, it was concluded that mineral water shows the highest abundance of MPs (35 ± 11.77) particles per 0.05 ml corresponding to estimated concentration of 7.0 × 105 – 9.2 × 105 particles per liter compared to other water samples. By comparing the fluorescence intensity of three different solvents, it was concluded that ethanol (95.35 ± 27.47) shows the highest fluorescence intensity than distilled water and acetone. One-way ANOVA was further applied to determine a significant difference between the abundances of MPs in all water samples and the fluorescence intensity of all three different solvents. The p-value was found to be less than 0.05, which showed that there exists a significant difference between all these water samples and between the fluorescence intensity of all these different solvents.