Abdullah Mohammed
Grade 10, Poster Presenter
The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the number of microplastics found in medicine bottles of popular brands. Previous studies have indicated that microplastics can be found in many plastic products and have been shown to contain hundreds to thousands of microplastics per sample. The findings of this experiment highlight a potential problem that may impact billions of people globally and may serve as a basis for more risk assessment-based research with respect to microplastics on medicinal efficiency. 90 medicine bottles were collected and stored on an oscillator for 1 day. These bottles contained water of 95C°-100C°, they were cleansed previously with 10 mL of 30% hydrogen peroxide and deionized water. They were then filtered using a borosilicate glass filter using a vacuum filtration system and each filter was placed into petri dishes organized by brand. During filtration, they were doused with 5 mL of a fluorescein solution and left to dry for 15 minutes in the petri dishes. Finally, they were placed on glass slides into the fluorescent microscope at 4000x total magnification. All microplastics found in the images were quantified later by hand and organized by totals per sample. Overall, the findings demonstrate the rejection of the null hypothesis based on the most significant t-test p<.004.
Mentors:
- Mrs. Allison Hennings – IMSA/RISE Instructor
- Dr. Jason Keleher (Ph.D.) – Lewis University
- Ms. Katey Sheets – Lewis University
- Mr. Joseph Powell – Lewis University
- Dr. Khan (Ph.D.) – University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
- Dr. Farooq (M.D.) – Medical University of the Americas
