
Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
First Advisor
Brian Giebel
Second Advisor
Pengfei Zhang
Third Advisor
Steven Kidder
Keywords
MICROPLASTICS, BIOSOLIDS, WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT (WWTP), FTIR, POLYMERS
Abstract
Wastewater biosolids are a direct source of microplastics to the terrestrial environment because they are often applied in agricultural settings to increase field and soil nutrients. At present, the research community is struggling to standardized analytical methods for addressing this emerging environmental concern. This research aims to address this lack of standardization by developing a protocol to extract, count, and identify the types of microplastics in biosolids collected from two wastewater treatment locations in a large urban city. Our approach utilizes a density separation and a Fenton digestion as main components to collect microplastics and to allow their analysis with µFTIR spectroscopy. Data analysis was achieved using an iterative comparison and cross-validation of two separate spectral libraries – a commercial library available with the instrumentation and Open Specy, an online and open-source library used more frequently in support of microplastic research
Recommended Citation
Velasquez Polania, Nicole L., "Approaches For Identifying And Characterizing Microplastics In Biosolids Using Density Separation And µFTIR Spectroscopy" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1197