Vijayshanthy S, Priyanka E B, Thangavel S, Anand R, Bhavana G B, Khan Baseem, Jeyanthi K
Department of Civil Engineering, Sree Sakthi Engineering College, Coimbatore, India.
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, India.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):20774. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-06072-z.
In this study, microplastics (MPs) source, movement and final disposition in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and its ultimate release into natural water bodies are investigated. It seeks to exploit this to devise a systematic procedure for identifying the presence of MPs, the primary and secondary sources of MPs, and their behavior in wastewater. It also discusses pre-treatment processes, analytical methods, multiple sampling methods, among others, for quantifying microplastics in WWTPs. Real time operation-based experimental results indicate that the average removal efficiency of microplastics in the evaluated WWTPs was around 84%. Real time monitoring and analysis of the WWTPs was conducted in Erode where WWTPs were present in study. In this, we have implemented an IoT based system, for monitoring water quality using Data Aggregator Server in the cloud running task applications. The findings suggest that WWTPs are effective in removing a large proportion of microplastics, however smaller particles with low density are harder to remove through traditional treatment process means and end up in the environment. Therefore, membrane filtration and advanced oxidation processes may be utilized to overcome microplastic removal, and cost-effective solutions are important. Also, the research explores modification of existing polymer-based membranes, we modified PSF and GO membranes incorporating PVA or GO for improved efficiency with good economics. Real-time experimental outcomes were closely matched by the data analysis of the cloud-based virtual model for removal efficiency.
在本研究中，对微塑料（MPs）在污水处理厂（WWTPs）中的来源、迁移和最终处置及其最终释放到天然水体中的情况进行了调查。其目的是利用这一点设计出一种系统程序，用于识别微塑料的存在、微塑料的主要和次要来源及其在废水中的行为。它还讨论了用于量化污水处理厂中微塑料的预处理过程、分析方法、多种采样方法等。基于实时运行的实验结果表明，在所评估的污水处理厂中，微塑料的平均去除效率约为84%。在研究区域内有污水处理厂的埃罗德对污水处理厂进行了实时监测和分析。在此过程中，我们实施了一个基于物联网的系统，利用云端运行任务应用程序中的数据聚合服务器来监测水质。研究结果表明，污水处理厂在去除大部分微塑料方面是有效的，然而，低密度的较小颗粒更难通过传统处理工艺去除，最终进入环境。因此，可以利用膜过滤和高级氧化工艺来克服微塑料的去除问题，具有成本效益的解决方案很重要。此外，该研究还探索了对现有聚合物基膜的改性，我们通过掺入聚乙烯醇（PVA）或氧化石墨烯（GO）对聚砜（PSF）膜和GO膜进行改性，以提高效率并具有良好的经济性。基于云的虚拟模型对去除效率的数据分析与实时实验结果密切匹配。
