Abstract
The worldwide microplastics pollution is a serious environmental and health problem that is currently not effectively mitigated. In this work we tested jellyfish mucus as a new bioflocculent material capable of sequestration of polystyrene microplastics in aqueous environments. Mucus material was collected from different jellyfish species and was used to trap fluorescently tagged polystyrene microspheres. The efficiency of removal was tested using varying concentrations of microplastics and mucus. The interaction between the microplastics and mucus was determined by viscosity measurements and confocal laser scanning microscopy. Different mucus preparation methods were also tested: freshly prepared, mechanically sheared, freeze-thawed, freeze-dried, and hydrolyzed mucus. The results demonstrate that jellyfish mucus can efficiently sequester polystyrene microplastics particles from the suspension. The fraction of the removed microplastics was highest with freshly prepared mucus and decreased with freeze-thawing and freeze-drying. The mucus ability to sequester microplastics was completely lost in the hydrolyzed mucus. The results imply that the intact jellyfish mucus has the potential to be used as a biopolymer capable of removing microplastics material.
Highlights
Microplastics are defined as plastic particles ≤5 mm in size (Hartmann et al, 2019)
The fresh mucus collected from C. tuberculata, A. aurita, M. leidyi, and R. pulmo jellyfish had the ability to remove PS microspheres from the suspension (Figure 2)
In this work we have tested the ability of the mucus material collected from C. tuberculata, A. aurita, M. leidyi, and R. pulmo jellyfish to remove PS microspheres
Summary
Microplastics are defined as plastic particles ≤5 mm in size (Hartmann et al, 2019). They have predominantly been recognized as marine contaminants with estimated 93 to 236 thousand metric tons floating on the global sea surface (Thompson et al, 2004; Desforges et al, 2014; Ivar do Sul and Costa, 2014; van Sebille et al, 2015). Microplastics enter freshwater and terrestrial environments, endangering the health of these environments as well (Rillig, 2012; Morritt et al, 2014; Faure et al, 2015; Liu M. et al, 2018). They can be found in human settlements, rivers, mountain soils, in the sediments of deepest ocean and even in Arctic snow (Dris et al, 2016; Cai et al, 2017; Wright et al, 2020). The management of microplastics pollution problem, is not a solved issue and new mitigation strategies are still emerging (Figure 1)
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