Pre-detection of microplastics using active thermography

Abstract

Spectrometric analysis is one of the most widely used approaches to characterize the chemical nature of microplastics. Despite recent developments, this key step remains time consuming. The aim of this paper is to propose a new method for the pre-detection of microplastics based on mid-infrared imaging. Plastic particles were mixed with sand particles and placed on a glass filter. Infrared observation with a thermal camera shows a stronger thermal contrast measured between the filter and the plastics than between the filter and the sand, which reveals the plastic particles in a few tens of seconds. An image processing tool is then used to amplify this contrast. Furthermore, this pre-detection method makes it possible to propose hypotheses on the most probable chemical nature of the particles identified. Consequently, pre-detection using active thermography constitutes a promising way of significantly accelerating microplastic study.