Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
Standing Wave Acoustics for Nanoplastics Separations (SWANS) - PROJECT SUMMARY The bioavailability of plastic particles less than 1000 nm in diameter makes nanoplastics the greatest biomedical concern. Therefore, the analysis and isolation of plastic nanoparticles from a variety of samples (e.g. bottled water, environmental water, animal tissue) is critical to many areas of biomedical and environmental research. Current nanoplastics isolation approaches are costly, time consuming, and do not adapt to real-time analysis. This limitation is a notable technology gap that broadly impacts studies on the biomedical effects of plastic nanoparticles. In this proposal, we are developing a high-throughput separations platform that uses differential application of bulk mode acoustic standing waves (BAWS) to simply and rapidly enrich plastic nanoparticles from diverse samples. To create a proof-of-concept prototype of our standing wave acoustics for nanoplastics separations (SWANS) platform for the detection and separation of plastic nanoparticles, we are constructing a multistage BAWS device that will first negatively select for nanoplastics via removal of microparticles into clearing streams and then enrich for nanoplastics via long exposure to high frequency standing waves. The SWANS system will be used to isolate nanoplastics from real samples and compared to existing nanoplastic isolation approaches. We expect that SWANS will dramatically simplify and shorten the process required to isolate nanoplastics for analysis, which is the rate limiting step in current research. SWANS will scale between 50 nm and 1000 m particles. Throughput will depend on particle size, but tens of mL per minute flow rates with efficient enrichment for nanoplastics will be achievable. As such, processing of mL samples in minutes and L scale samples in fractions of an hour will be possible. Further development will enable automated operation or in-line placement of SWANS for many applications, including monitoring and purifying potable water systems, controlling the effluent properties of industrial processing streams, and environmental analysis. Notably, this approach could be coupled with single particle fluorescence flow cytometry or stimulated Raman spectroscopy for real time monitoring of enriched particle streams. As such, SWANS represents the first step in a developmental pathway that will be of immense value to human health. Beyond the impact of the integrated technology platform, we also anticipate that this project will provide new insights in the fields of microfabrication and the micromanipulation of nanoparticles via acoustofluidics.
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