Geopolymers have gained significant attention for various applications including adsorbents, membranes, filters, and support for photocatalysts in water and wastewater treatment due to their environmentally friendly and cost-effective manufacturing process. In this project, a novel use of geopolymers will be studied: a filtration material to separate microplastics (MPs). The increasing presence of MPs in water bodies from sources like wastewater treatment plants, plastic processing industries, personal care products, textiles, tires, and city dust is a major concern. MPs have a strong affinity for organic micropollutants, pathogens, etc., due to their large surface area and hydrophobic nature. These make them potential carriers of harmful organisms and pollutants in the aquatic environment. The presence of MPs in water has harmful consequences for aquatic organisms including reduced growth rate, digestion issues, intestinal abrasion, and false satiety. Thus, there is a pressing need to effectively separate MPs from the aquatic environment. However, the use of geopolymers for this purpose has not been studied yet. To address this research gap, this project aims to develop and optimize a surface-modified hydrophobic geopolymer by applying silanol chemistry that can be utilized for the separation of MPs from water and wastewater. From our preliminary study, it has been found that silane-modified geopolymer foam is more effective compared to non-modified foam in the separation of MPs. The modified foam can separate over 99% MPs for the treatment of ~200 bed volumes of model water. The current project will investigate in detail the optimization of the preparation of silane-modified geopolymer foam and the optimization of different parameters in MPs separation from water by the selected silane-modified geopolymer foam.

2024