Investigação científica de microplásticos na praia Pedra do Sal em Parnaíba - Piauí

Abstract

The pollution caused by plastic remains a problem of great relevance from the environmental, economic and social points of view, since plastic is a widely used material. The particles that present sizes between 1 and 5 mm in length are called microplastics (MP) and can be classified as primary and secondary. Microplastics are currently considered to be emerging contaminants, as they pose great risks to the environment, especially to marine biota. The absence of studies about microplastics in Pedra do Sal beach (Parnaíba-PI) motivated this end-of-course work, in order to investigate the presence of microplastics in this region. For this, samples were collected and characterized physically, using an electron microscope, and chemically by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The results showed in the obtained spectrum bands of 3571-3214 cm-1 O-H stretching; 1424 cm-1 C-H deformation of alkenes; 1082 cm-1 C-O stretching of alcohol; 872 cm-1 C-H deformation of geminal disubstituted alkenes; 781 cm-1 C-H deformation of benzene ring with 5 free adjacent H atoms (1st peak); 697 cm-1 C-H deformation of benzene ring with 5 free adjacent H atoms (2nd peak). Observing a predominance of silica residues, present in the sand, over the plastic fragments obtained after the final filtration procedure. However, even with overlapping silica bands seen on the microplastics, specific stretching present in nylon and Polyethylene terephthalate can be distinguished.