Is electrochemical oxidation an effective technique for treating water contaminated with microplastics?

Microplastics (MPs) are emerging as significant contaminants, accumulating in diverse environmental matrices and posing threats to both ecosystems and public health. Traditional treatments are ineffective in adequately removing MPs from impacted water, and the development of innovative and efficient technologies is highly required. Electrochemical oxidation (EO), belonging to the class of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), has shown promise as a viable technology for treating water contaminated with MPs. Given the very limited number of studies on MP degradation by EO, the current research aims to investigate the electro-removal of polystyrene, chosen as the target MPs, providing more knowledge to the scientific community. The project is part of a collaboration between the Department of Engineering and the Department of Environmental, Biological, and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” (Italy).

During the seminar presentation, Angelo will provide preliminary results about the research activities carried out over the last five months in collaboration with QAEHS (The University of Queensland), under the supervision of Prof. Thomas and Dr. Okoffo.

Dr. Angelo Fenti is a Post-Doc within the Department of Engineering at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. He successfully completed his Ph.D. in July 2022, defending a thesis entitled “Electrochemical treatment of wastewater”. His current research activities are focused on developing and optimizing electrochemical oxidation processes to degrade organic contaminants from impacted water, including PFASs, pharmaceuticals, and microplastics. In collaboration with his research group, Angelo has recently approached the identification and quantification of MPs and bioplastics in different environmental matrices using the Py-GCMS technique.