Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles that crumble from the larger plastic things used daily, such as water bottles, car tires, and synthetic T-shirts. They are one of the biggest environmental problems of the 21st century, because once they are dispersed into the environment through the breakdown of larger plastics, it is very difficult to get rid of them by going to drinking water, products and food, harming the environment and animals. and human health. “It is very important to develop a robot to collect and sample harmful microplastic pollutants from the aquatic environment,” said Yuyan Wang, a researcher at the Polymer Research Institute at Sichuan University and one of the study’s lead authors. The new invention of her team is described in a research paper in the journal Nano Letters. “As far as we know, this is the first example of such soft robots.” Researchers at Sichuan University have discovered an innovative way to detect these pollutants when it comes to water pollution: design a tiny self-propelled robot fish that can swim, stick to free floating microplastics and fix if cut. or damaged during his campaign. The robot fish is only 13 millimeters long and thanks to a light laser system in its tail, it swims and strikes at around 30 millimeters per second, similar to the speed at which plankton drift into moving water. The researchers created the robot from materials inspired by elements that thrive in the sea: the mother of pearl, also known as the pearl, which is the inner cover of clam shells. The team created a nacre-like material by placing several tiny sheets of molecules according to the specific chemical inclination of the nacre. This made them a robot fish that is resilient, flexible to twist and even capable of pulling up to 5 pounds in weight, according to the study. Most importantly, bionic fish can adsorb nearby free-floating microplastics because organic dyes, antibiotics, and heavy metals in microplastics have strong chemical bonds and electrostatic interactions with fish materials. This makes them adhere to its surface so that the fish can collect and remove microplastics from the water. “Once the robot collects the microplastics in the water, the researchers can further analyze the composition and physiological toxicity of the microplastics,” Wang said. In addition, the newly created material also appears to have regenerative abilities, said Wang, who specializes in developing self-healing materials. Thus, the robot fish can heal itself at 89% of its capacity and continue to absorb even if it is damaged or cut – something that could often happen if it goes hunting for pollutants in rough waters. This is just a proof of the idea, Wang notes, and it needs a lot more research – especially on how it could be developed in the real world. For example, the soft robot currently only works on water surfaces, so Wang’s team will soon be working on more sophisticated functional robot fish that can go deeper underwater. However, this bionic design could provide a starting point for other similar projects, Wang said. “I believe that nanotechnology promises a lot for the adsorption of traces, the collection and detection of pollutants, improving the efficiency of the intervention while reducing operating costs.” Indeed, nanotechnology will be one of the most important players in the fight against microplastics, according to Filippos Dimokritou, director of the Center for Nanoscience and Advanced Materials Research at Rutgers University, who did not participate in the study. Democritus’s lab also focuses on using nanotechnology to rid microplastics of the planet – but instead of cleaning them up, it works to replace them. This week, in Nature Food magazine, he announced the invention of a new spray coating of plant origin that could serve as an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic food wrappers. Their case study has shown that this starch-based fiber spray can repel pathogens and protect against transport damage just as well, if not better, than current plastic packaging options. “The motto for the last 40 to 50 years for the chemical industry is: let’s make chemicals, let’s make materials, let’s get them out there and then clean up the mess 20 or 30 years later,” Demokritou said. “This is not a viable model. So can we synthesize safer design materials? “Can we extract materials from food waste as part of the circular economy and turn it into useful materials that we can use to tackle this problem?” This is a low-key fruit for the nanotechnology sector, Democritus said, and as research into materials improves, so will the multilevel approach of replacing plastic in our daily lives and filtering out its microplastic residues from the environment. “But there is a big difference between an invention and an innovation,” Democritus said. “The invention is something no one has thought of yet. Correctly? “But innovation is something that will change people’s lives, because it reaches commercialization and can escalate.”
