Major Goals and Objectives

My research plan has two main components: (1) Successfully 3D print a single flexible, oleophilic hair structure on a flat surface, using widely available and low-cost manufacturing methods to demonstrate capture performance. (2) Utilize the aforementioned design to scale-up and create a filter with multiple hairs to test printability and capture performance.

Microplastics are commonly found in water ways and are challenging to remove due to the wide range of particle size, shape, and chemical composition. A 2013 study reported that the surface of the Great Lakes accumulate an average of 43,000 microplastics particles per square kilometer and up to 466,000 microplastics per kilometer near major cities. A decade later, nearly 90% of samples taken from the surface of the Great Lakes exceeded safe levels for wildlife and people. This poses serious risk to public and environmental health since 21% of the world’s surface freshwater is contained in the Great Lakes (about 22.7 quadrillion liters). Nearly 40 million people depend on the Great Lakes for drinking water. However, because these particles are small and prevalent, often they make their way past water treatment facilities and contaminate drinking water. Current practices for particle removal include bubble, granular, and membrane filtration; however, these have various disadvantages like particle abundance and size dependency or requiring specific environmental conditions, of these the most common issues are clogging and limited-service life. Hence, the need for an environmentally friendly, low-cost, and scalable mechanism for microplastic capture is evident.