Project news Producing Microplastic to Reduce Microplastic

The development and production of analytical microplastic standards is underway at Chiron AS and NIVA in Norway. As of Autumn 2021, Chiron and NIVA have installed new equipment for the production of microplastic particles of desired shapes and sizes. Here Chiron and NIVA are working closely together on making environmental relevant microplastic reference materials. The first batches of different polymers look very promising as shown in the images and are now submitted to EUROqCHARMs strict quality control and quality assurance criteria.

Paradoxically, of course, producing reference materials to support research into the reduction of microplastic necessitates the production of a controlled amount of microplastic. This can be somewhat counterintuitive for an environmental chemist, but exciting nonetheless, as there is a pressing need for well-characterised
reference materials within microplastic research. The microplastic reference materials will be used in the upcoming EUROqCHARM interlaboratory study which will take place in 2022. This study along with registration will be launched in the beginning of 2022, please get in touch with EUROqCHARM for more information on the ILC.