Superfine plastic in a paper cup that is less than 1/100,000 hair 'Full'
Jul 12, 2024
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Inha University's bio-system convergence students (supervision professor, mechanical engineering department Kim Sun-min, biotechnology department Jeon Tae-joon), Kim Ki-dong, and Jin Jin Woo-hyun, master's and doctoral integration students (supervision professor, life science department Son Se-jin) found plastic particles smaller than nanometers (1 billionth of a meter), about one-hundred-thousandth the thickness of their hair, in disposable paper cups coated with polyethylene (PE).
It was also confirmed that the small plastic particles found could trigger an inflammatory response in immune cells.
With the recent increase in the use of disposable products, the impact of microplastics generated from disposable plastics on the human body is emerging as a social problem.
So far, the size of microplastics is known to vary from several tens of nanometers to micrometers (one-millionth of a meter).
Microplastics of various sizes were detected through analysis instruments such as electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). However, existing technologies and equipment have limitations in that they cannot find materials smaller than nanometers.
In this study, nanopore sensing was used to find microplastics smaller than nanometers that could not be found with existing technologies and equipment.
Nanopore sensing is a method of measuring changes in pico-unit current (1 trillionth of an ampere) in real time while passing through a protein (alpha-hemolysin) with nanopores (holes).
Through the technology developed, the research team confirmed that 1.3 nanometers or less of microplastics are eluted from the paper cup when the polyethylene-coated paper cup used daily is filled with hot water.
It was also found that microplastics smaller than nanometers also cause inflammation of immune cells, such as micro and nanometer microplastics.
The degree of inflammation was found to be about 88% when compared to nanometer-sized microplastics of the same mass. However, the research team explains that the smaller the particles, the more easily they are absorbed by the human body, so they can be as harmful to the human body as micro and nano microplastics.
The paper was recently published online in the Chemical Engineering Journal (IF: 15.1), an international renowned academic journal in the environmental field, in recognition of its research results under the title Nanopore Detection of Sub-Nanosized Plastics in PE-Coated Paper Cups and Analysis of their Inflamatory Responses.
A Ph.D. student at Inha University's Bio-System Convergence Department was able to achieve good results with the help of students with the supervisor"We want to inform the seriousness of microplastics that are emerging as environmental problems and contribute to solving related problems" he said.
The research was conducted with the support of the Basic Laboratory (BRL) of the Korea Research Foundation of the Ministry of Science and ICT, the mid-sized research support project, and the Environmental Technology Development Project of the Ministry of Environment.
Through the BK21 project's excellent graduate student overseas training program, student conditionho is currently conducting a dispatch study at Professor Ryuji Kawano's lab at Tokyo Agricultural University, an authority on nanopore research.
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bellho@sportschosun.com
