MICRO-PLASTIC AND ITS DETECTION IN SALT

Abstract

Micro-plastics are the carbon polymers of size less than 5 mm. In the recent decades, they are the topic of increasing concern. In this study, the presence of micro-plastic has been studied in the vacuum evaporized salt. The elemental analysis of the sample showed that the sample contained on an average 49% carbon and 35% oxygen by weight. The atomic percent of the sample showed that for every 6 atoms of carbon an average of 3.3 atoms of oxygen were present. It has also been observed that the number of particles of micro-plastics increases as the size decreases. About 40% micro-plastic particles were present in the size range of 10 – 20 μm² while about 71.5% of the micro-plastic particles were of the size 10 - 50 μm².