Microplastics are plastic fragments smaller than 5 mm originated from human activities, and have been found everywhere, also in the remotest places of the Earth. Measuring their position and velocity in turbulent flows, such as ocean, rivers and lakes, is crucial to better understand their behaviour and make physical models that describe their paths. To this aim, we designed a new facility, the TU Wien turbulent Water Channel, which we recently presented in paper published on Review in Scientific Instrument. This project is funded by FWF (Austrian Science Fund).

The TU Wien Turbulent Water Channel is a 3000 litres volume and 10 meters long flow loop designed for 3D and time-resolved measurements of anisotropic particles dynamics. We developed a novel approach to track microplastics, since they are usually anisotropic and techniques developed for spherical particles are not suitable to track such objects. In addition, in this work, we provide guidelines to design turbulent water ducts, and we also compare against existing facilities.

The data and the paper (Open Access) are freely available for download.

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This work has been selected for the Kudos Research Showcase.