Chattopadhyay Purnesh, Ariza-Tarazona Maria Camila, Cedillo-González Erika Iveth, Siligardi Cristina, Simmchen Juliane
Chair of Physical Chemistry, TU Dresden, Zellescher Weg 19, Dresden, Germany.
Department of Engineering "Enzo Ferrari", University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via P. Vivarelli 10/1, 41125 Modena, Italy.
Nanoscale. 2023 Sep 21;15(36):14774-14781. doi: 10.1039/d3nr01512b.
Microplastics are a significant environmental threat and the lack of efficient removal techniques further amplifies this crisis. Photocatalytic semiconducting nanoparticles have the potential to degrade micropollutants, among them microplastics. The hydrodynamic effects leading to the propulsion of micromotors can lead to the accumulation of microplastics in close vicinity of the micromotor. Incorporating these different properties into a single photocatalytic micromotor (self-propulsion, phoretic assembly of passive colloids and photocatalytic oxidation of contaminants), we achieve a highly scalable, inherently-asymmetric Pac-Man TiO micromotor with the ability to actively collect and degrade microplastics. The target microplastics are homogeneous polystyrene microspheres (PS) to facilitate the optical degradation measurements. We cross-correlate the degradation with catalytic activity studies and critically evaluate the timescales required for all involved processes.
微塑料是一种重大的环境威胁，而缺乏有效的去除技术进一步加剧了这一危机。光催化半导体纳米颗粒有降解微污染物的潜力，微塑料也在其中。导致微马达推进的流体动力学效应会使微塑料在微马达附近聚集。将这些不同特性整合到单个光催化微马达中（自我推进、被动胶体的泳动组装以及污染物的光催化氧化），我们制造出了一种具有高度可扩展性、本质上不对称的吃豆人形状的TiO微马达，它能够主动收集并降解微塑料。目标微塑料是均匀的聚苯乙烯微球（PS），以便于进行光降解测量。我们将降解与催化活性研究进行交叉关联，并严格评估所有相关过程所需的时间尺度。
