Microplastic Extraction of Exfoliating Beads from Cleansers
After watching a short online video that recaps the enormous scale of accumulating plastic waste in our oceans, student teams are challenged to devise a method to remove the most plastic microbeads from a provided commercial personal care product—such as a facial cleanser or body wash. They brainstorm filtering methods ideas and design their own specific procedures that use teacher-provided supplies (coffee filters, funnels, plastic syringes, vinyl tubing, water, plastic bags) to extract the microplastics as efficiently as possible. The research and development student teams compare the final masses of their extracted microbeads to see which filter solutions worked best. Students suggest possible future improvements to their filter designs. A student worksheet is provided.
The tiny plastic microbeads found in exfoliating cleansers and gels end up as water pollution. How can we filter them out of the water?Copyright 2012 image by 5Gyres, courtesy of Oregon State University, Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/21282786668
Keeping water resources free of plastic is a challenge since microplastics are not soluble nor magnetic, and vary in size, material composition, and decomposition stage. Because plastic pollution is a growing issue, engineers are designing new technologies to remove microplastics from drinking water and the natural environment. In this activity, students get a taste of this clean-up challenge by developing their own methods to extract microplastics from samples of commercially available facial cleansers.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Evaluate environmental impacts of personal care products.
- Develop and test a model for an innovative and efficient water filtration system and recover contaminants/resources.