A Silicon Nanomembrane Analysis Pipeline (SNAP) for Multimodal Analysis of Microplastics in Drinking Water

31 January 2025, Version 2
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

The biological impact of microplastics in human food and water sources is largely unknown, and drinking water sources are not exempt from microplastic contamination. Here, we demonstrate a streamlined approach for capturing, quantifying, and identifying microplastics in drinking water. We present an analytical workflow termed Silicon Nanomembrane Analysis Pipeline (SNAP) that takes advantage of novel silicon nitride nanomembranes which enable a significant “concentration factor," consolidating suspended particles into a planarized observation area for individuated, quantifiable, and multimodal particle analysis on the same substrate. Drinking water samples sourced in the Rochester, NY region were collected and analyzed using SNAP. Particles in each sample were characterized by optical and electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and various identified constituents were quantified in proportion to total captured particles.

Keywords

Microplastics
Water filtration
Raman Spectroscopy
Scanning electron microscopy
SEM
Tap Water Microplastics
SiMPore
Microfiltration
Silicon Nitride
SiN membranes

Supplementary materials

Title
Description
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Title
Parameters used to determine particle counts in each respective size bin
Description
Each section specifies the manual thresholding and additional processing parameters used to determine the quantity of particles in each size bin. Each sample's particle counts are quantified from both the 8 and 20 micron membranes used to filter the sample.
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