BREE 327 Project Design:
Modular Under-Sink Filter to Capture Cosmetic Microplastic in Households
A simple effective way to reduce your environmental footprint!
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Many cosmetic products contain polymeric ingredients that degrade into MNPs, which enter wastewater streams during routine use. Conventional treatment plants lack the pore resolution, membrane durability, and chemical targeting needed to fully remove these particles consequently, MNPs persist in effluent water and accumulate in aquatic ecosystems. Once ingested by organisms from plankton to fish, MNPs induce oxidative stress, cellular damage, and impaired feeding, while also adsorbing pollutants like PFAS and heavy metals that biomagnify through the food chain. In humans, exposure via seafood consumption has been linked to inflammatory responses and endocrine disruption.
Although it is difficult to remove MNPs once they have spread and begun to bioaccumulate, we can reduce their release by collecting them at their source—our sinks. Therefore, we propose an easily attachable under-the-sink filter made with bacterial cellulose (BC) membranes. BC is a renewable material that is flexible, hydrophilic, and effective at trapping both plastics and heavy metals. The filter would be simple to install and consist of three stages: a coarse filter to catch large debris such as hair or soap, a mechanism to separate oils and other non-polar substances that interfere with filtration, and finally the BC membrane to capture MNPs. Such design would enable modularity, to allow easy replacement and maintenance, and will be optimized for typical residence flow rates.
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