Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 32: Poster: Active Matter, Soft Matter, Fluids

DY 32.22: Poster

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 15:00–18:00, Poster C

Investigation in microfiltration for water purification — •Tim R. Baumann, Dario Anselmetti, and Martina Viefhues — Experimental Biophysics, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

Fresh water and oceans‘ pollution due to contamination by plastics is a global endangerment and a highly discussed topic in politics and socioeconomics. Over the last years many restrictions on handling plastics were made specific in the European Union focussing mainly on reducing plastic waste production. Nevertheless, due to mechanical and photo-/chemical wear and tear macroplastics degrade to microplastics or even smaller nanoplastics. Particles of that size are able to migrate in organic tissue and therefore becoming part of the food chain. Filtering plastics of this size is a difficult effort. Thus, this work aims to develop a microfluidic device to be used for removing microplastics from water. Clark et al. proposed a bioinspired mechanism for purification mimicking the feeding mechanism of ray species. The device consists of two rows of tilted posts, splitting the volume. At high Reynolds numbers, i.e. high flow rates, filtration occurs due to position dependent shear and wall induced lift forces. This led to filtration of spherical beads down to 10 µ m. In our work, we aim on recreating those results and gaining better understanding of the underlining mechanisms to improve the filter system. Our measurements revealed that the ratio of filtered volume, increased with flow rate up to 50%. Additionally, we were able to filtrate 82% of microparticles. Further, we gain insides of the geometric impact on the systems filtration throughput and efficiency.

Keywords: microfluidics; microplastic; water purification