I read the article. Apparently it only really works with hard water - that's water with a high concentration of calcium carbonate. At high temperatures, the calcium carbonate becomes a solid, trapping the microplastics inside it, which is then removed from the water with a regular filter.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (10 children)

So, the boiling doesn’t remove it at all; it pre-treats hard water, making it capable of being filtered out afterwards.

[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Traps it how - guessing as a gas? What the fuck are microplastics and how does clear water trap that? I’m lost as fuck

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago

The calcium carbonate in hard water precipitates out when you boil it, i.e. it turns solid.

Microplastics make for great nucleation points for the calcium carbonate to latch onto. So, the microplastics became super easy to filter out of the water (with some getting stuck to the bottom of the kettle in that white scale that you have to use vinegar to clean out.

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