Professor of marine and environmental sciences Aron Stubbins, working with graduate teaching assistant Erin Tuttle, has published a new paper in Environmental Pollution describing “An acidic/oxidative digestion that quantitatively removes cellulose acetate.” This process “preserve[s] plastics while digesting synthetic cellulose acetate and a range of organics encountered in environmental samples,” thus isolating the plastics for further study.

Find “An optimized acidic digestion for the isolation of microplastics from biota-rich samples and cellulose acetate matrices” in Environmental Pollution.