Strategies for the Quantification and Characterization of Nanoplastics in AOPs Research: A Case Study for Polystyrene Nanospheres

C. DI LUCA; J. GARCÍA; M. MUNOZ; M. HERNANDO-PÉREZ; Z. M. DE PEDRO; J. A. CASAS

Florianópolis

Conferencia; VI Iberoamerican Conference on Advanced Oxidation Technologies (VI CIPOA); 2024

Associação Brasileira de Engenharia Química

There is a growing interest in developing new degradation technologies for the removal of micro- and nanoplastics (NPs) in water. Recently, AOPs have been proposed as promising treatment alternatives for effective degradation of NPs in water. However, the selection of appropriate analytical methods for monitoring the oxidation tests remains a challenge. In this work, the feasibility of different characterization strategies for monitoring the evolution of NPs upon oxidation tests was systematically studied using polystyrene (PS) NPs of different particle sizes (D0 = 140 − 909 nm). To quantify NPs, TOC, COD and turbidity were assessed. To characterize particle size, TEM, DLS, NTA and AFM were employed and compared. Chemical surface modifications were explored by FTIR and the carbonyl index was calculated. As a case study, PS NPs degradation upon photo-Fenton oxidation was investigated at ambient conditions and fully characterized using the mentioned techniques.