The study found that on average, each liter of tap water contains about 1mg of microplastics and nanoplastics. After boiling for 5 minutes and letting it cool, more than 80% of the resin was removed.
Researchers have recently identified a useful, inexpensive and effective way to limit microplastics and microscopic pieces of nanoplastic in tap water.
Microplastics and nanoplastics (pieces of plastic that are 100 nanometers in size or less) are ubiquitous on Earth. They are also found in food, enter the body through the respiratory and digestive tract, posing a risk to human health.
New research by Eddy Zeng, of Jinan University in China, and colleagues found that boiling tap water for 5 minutes can remove more than 80% of contaminating plastic debris.
Drinking cooled boiled water is common in Asia, but a large number of people around the world are accustomed to drinking tap or bottled water, inadvertently ignoring the problems of being able to absorb microplastics and nanoplastics (NMPs).
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The team measured the amount of NMP in tap water and found that on average each liter of water contains about 1mg of NMP. After boiling tap water samples for 5 minutes and letting them cool, they found that more than 80% of the NMP had been removed.
"We estimate that the amount of NMP absorbed through boiled water is 2 to 5 times less than through daily tap water," Zeng told New Scientist.
According to the team, boiling is a simple but effective way to "decontaminate" NMP in household tap water.
When boiled, NMP adheres to limescale produced from calcium in water. This means that boiling will help better remove microplastic fragments in hard water, which has a higher calcium content. Research indicates that heating hard water containing 300mg of calcium carbonate will help reduce the amount of NMP in water by about 90%.
Anh Thư - (Source: tuoitre.vn)
