The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)
project team recently published a comprehensive
study on the field. 2
It was carried out on behalf of Department of
environment, food and rural affair (DEFRA) with the
aim to detect and quantify the occurrence of different
type of microplastic in UK river and sediments,
including the assessment of TWP though an indirect
quantification of 6-PPD, which was chose a a
molecular marker due to its particular chemical
structure and persistency in the environment.
Microwave assisted extraction (MAE) proved to be a
reliable and effective technique to obtain extraction of
those types of additives from the treated sediments
and soils. To perform MAE, the group of research
used Milestone’s ETHOS X benchtop microwave
extraction system with fastEX 24 eT rotor.