Establishment of an optimal method for extracting microplastic particles from soil.
As part of her extended visit, Asst. Galina Ćurčić from Educons University had a unique opportunity to collaborate closely with the GREENLand project partners at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Helgoland, Germany, during her two-month stay. In addition to benefiting from knowledge transfer with colleagues experienced in microplastic research, one of the primary goals of this training was to establish an optimal method for extracting microplastic particles from soil.
October was filled with scientific rigour, including iterative testing of various previously proposed methods, ongoing literature review, and careful analysis of results.
The main focus of this research was addressing the complexities of soil matrices and identifying effective methods for organic matter digestion and density separation to maximize microplastic recovery with minimal interfering material – all while considering time and cost efficiency.
This experience not only expanded her laboratory and experimental design skills but also benefited all project partners as finding a suitable method enables the beginning of testing soil samples, generating preliminary results, and facilitating cross-laboratory comparisons.
