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Senior Design Day

A Device For Identifying Microplastics

A Device For Identifying Microplastics

Team Members

Tresa Elias
Emma Foley
Catherine Hauser

Supervisors

James McGrath, PhD, Biomedical Engineering, UR

Customers

Greg Madejski, PhD, Biomedical Engineering, UR

Description

We are designing a device that will provide a cost-effective method for characterizing whether a particle in water is a plastic or nonplastic, as well as categorizing the subtype of plastic. The device will need to be effective on a scale of approximately one to five microns, which is the size of the microplastic particles. For more information, please see our abstract on page 2.

This video provides an explanation of what our device does and how it is put together. It was animated using Blender.
Microplastic beads on a silicon wafer, imaged with a microscope.
This diagram shows a rendering of our detailed design, including proposed materials for a prototype.
  • Team logo, depicting a microscope and the team name: “The µPlastics”.
    Our team logo
  • Schematic showing our theoretical device and the materials.
    Microplastic contaminants