Treatment of microplastics in a high power pulsed corona discharge reactor

The production of plastics for industrial, commercial, and personal use has surged over the last 70 years, with over 450 million tonnes produced in 2019. Only about 7-9 % is recycled, with the rest left as waste, and about 1-2 million tonnes enter the oceans. This waste decays very slowly through natural means such as mechanical, UV-driven breakdown, and oxidation mechanisms. Over time, microplastics form (<5 mm) and have been found in water and soil. Green solutions are desired for the mineralization of plastics, removing them permanently from the environment. In this work, we investigate the treatment of microplastics in water solutions by nonthermal plasma, as plastics are recalcitrant oxidative processes, which primarily modify the surface. Here, we explore power, which can be varied up to 5 kW, using a recirculating pulsed corona plasma reactor to add high transient heat along with UV and reactive species. The solutions are placed in direct contact with the plasma. The post-treatment solutions of microplastics will be analyzed through GPC and ATR-FTIR methods to quantify changes in molecular weight and surface group modifications of the microplastics. HPLC and GCMS will be utilized to understand the mass ranges of products formed during treatment. The objective of this work is to quantify the effectiveness of the high-power non-thermal plasma reactor for the decomposition and depolymerization processes of microplastics in water.