Engineering

Ecology

Biology

Pollution

Materials science

Computer science

Chemical engineering

Biochemical engineering

Environmental engineering

Flocculation

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Particulates

Environmental chemistry

Contamination

Aqueous solution

Process engineering

Environmental science

Chemistry

Ion-exchange resin

Pulp and paper industry

Nanorobotics

Science Advances

Micro/nanoplastic (MNP) contamination in nonmarine waters has evolved into a notable ecotoxicological threat to the global ecosystem. However, existing strategies for MNP removal are typically limited to chemical flocculation or physical filtering that often fails to decontaminate plastic particulates with ultrasmall sizes or ultralow concentrations. Here, we report a self-driven magnetorobot comprising magnetizable ion-exchange resin sphere that can be used to dynamically remove or separate MNPs from nonmarine waters. As a result of the long-range electrophoretic attraction established by recyclable ion-exchange resin, the magnetorobot shows sustainable removal efficiency of >90% over 100 treatment cycles, with verified broad applicability to varying plastic compositions, sizes, and shapes as well as nonmarine water samples. Our work may facilitate industry-scale MNP removal with affordable cost and minimal secondary pollution and suggests an appealing strategy based on self-propelled micro/nanorobots to sample and assess nanoplastics in aqueous environment.

Self-driven magnetorobots for recyclable and scalable micro/nanoplastic removal from nonmarine waters