I am working on microfibers issue and I want to get ready made laboratory grade microplastics/microfibers. I am not convinced what the students are doing to prepare by using cutters in the lab. Because, first of all cutting by hand to micro level is very daubtful and secondly there will be surface modification during the cutting process. Therefore, I wan to really get the micofibers/plastics. Any help is very much appretiated.
Elias Wagari Microplastics in the environment are a big issue for research these days and I commend you for working on this vital issue and involving your students. Unfortunately life isn't easy in this technical area and there are many big players involved here and hence it can be expensive to work in this area. Plus there is an almost infinite number of plastics and types. Microplastics have been produced by diamond powder abrasion (i.e. like a conventional rock polishing machine) and this led to a(n) (expensive) NIST reference standard (RM8634) mimicking proteins made by abrading ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (a plastic of low refractive index). Chopped material (e.g. of glass fiber) of fixed length has been made by using commercial tobacco cutters and you may find a local company that could help here. Alternatively, embedding in epoxy resin and microtoming may work. A long time ago I made cut PAN fibers (the precursor of carbon fibers) by pulling a tow of 10000 filaments through a hole (using a strong fishing nylon and thus making 20000 filaments actually present) of about 2 mm drilled into a thin slide of aluminum. A sharp razor blade was used to cut (on both sides) a thin layer suitable for microscopy - you could actually easily push out the material after use. I wouldn't worry too much about surface modification during the cutting process as microplastics in the environment get much degraded and any contamination may mimic this process. I'll attach some reading material.
Elias Wagari I've tried to draw the route we used to make thin slices of PAN fiber tow as I think you could adapt it to work very easily. Using a 0.5 mm steel or aluminum slide you'd make fiber lengths of 500 microns from your yarn. It would need a little experimentation to get the hole size right based on the yarn you are using. The tighter you are able to pack the yarn in the hole, then the easier it will be to slice with a razor blade. Obviously, you need to be able to (just) get through 2 loops of the yarn plus 2 diameters of the strong fishing line. The method worked for me extremely well in the mid-1970's where we were examining the individual filaments of the PAN tow in order to attempt to prevent further problems in the pyrolysis stage for carbon fiber manufacture.
Elias Wagari This type of chopped glass fiber is really cheap, so a Google search may be helpful to find chopped nylon monofilament or similar. The example has lengths of 0.15 mm (150 microns):
https://www.sinocrs.com/products/short-glass-fiber/
I really appreciate your dedication to help others and taking your precious time to help young researchers out there like me. I will try to adopt your methods.
Hi Elias,
You may make an inquiry at Alfa Chemistry, they offer you advices and kinds of good-quality materials.
https://materials.alfachemic.com/inquiry
Thank you very much.
Done. I am not sure whether they respond my inquiry or not.
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