Microplastic Fibers Released by Textile Laundry: A New Analytical Approach for the Determination of Fibers in Effluents

Abstract

The detection of shedded fibers in effluents from textile washing has attracted much attention due to its reported contribution to microplastic pollution. Commonly used analytical methods for fiber detection in liquids are based on filtration with subsequent microscopic analysis and/or gravimetric weighing. These approaches are time-consuming and prone to errors. In this study, an approach based on dynamic image analysis was applied in order to set up an efficient method to analyze fibers in effluents from washing processes. In an initial validation step, reliable information on the counts of fibers and the morphological characteristics were confirmed. For wastewaters from polyester-cotton blends, the chemical nature of the fiber debris (natural vs. synthetic origin) was determined by combining the dynamic image analysis with a chemical pre-treatment. In this study, dynamic image analysis was revealed as a rapid, non-destructive, precise, and reliable technology for the characterization and quantification of the fiber debris, offering a promising approach for fiber analysis in liquids.

Microplastics in Wastewater by Washing Polyester Fabrics

“…Additionally, many studies have provided estimates of microfiber emissions from synthetic textiles during machine washing. Numerous studies and results show that textiles are among the main potential polluters due to the release of fibres, and that one of the reasons for this is the washing process [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Research has shown that the type of construction itself affects the amount of microfibers released.…”

A review of microplastic fibres: generation, transport, and vectors for metal(loid)s in terrestrial environments

“…Moreover, the fabric types and construction, reported units, laundering apparatus, laundering conditions, and bre characterisation techniques all differ between studies, making comparison of the results difficult. 59 Zambrano et al (2019), 25 Haap et al (2019), 58 Kelly et al…”

“…86% by mass, of bres released from the fabric were cotton and 14% were polyester, which can be attributed to the higher tensile strength and abrasion resistance of polyester, and the shorter constituent bre lengths of cotton. 25,58,66 61 found that increasing the water volume in accelerated laundering experiments, from 300 mL to 600 mL, resulted in an increase in bre shedding, from 54 mg kg À1 to 120 mg kg À1 . Several studies in Table 1 do not report the total volume of water used, and the fabric weight, density and surface area.…”

“…We highlight 25 research papers, published between 2011 and 2021, that report quantitative data on fabric shedding and summarise key data in Table 1. 4,25,41,42,46–66 Quantifying the number of fibres shed from a fabric during laundering is practically difficult due to the small size and vast numbers of fibres generated, and the lack of standardised methodologies. Moreover, the fabric types and construction, reported units, laundering apparatus, laundering conditions, and fibre characterisation techniques all differ between studies, making comparison of the results difficult.…”

Particle Characterization of Washing Process Effluents by Laser Diffraction Technique

“…Due to the potential contamination of aquatic recipients with different particles, it is important to characterize the wastewater from washing through determining the particle size [16][17][18].…”