This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) under the Environmental Health (CFDA 93.113) federal grant program provides $390,724 to the University of New Mexico to develop a novel separations platform called "SWANS" (Standing Wave Acoustics for Nanoplastics Separations). The objective is to create a proof-of-concept prototype device that can simply and rapidly enrich plastic nanoparticles from diverse samples using bulk acoustic wave technology. This high-throughput SWANS platform aims to dramatically improve the current limitations in isolating and analyzing nanoplastics, which are a critical concern for biomedical and environmental research due to their bioavailability. The project will establish the SWANS system's capability to isolate nanoplastics from real-world samples and benchmark its performance against existing nanoplastics isolation approaches. This award seeks to enable more efficient research on the health impacts of plastic nanoparticles and develop innovative microfluidic technologies for detecting and separating these particles.
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