Tire Wear Particle Sampling and Analysis

As a particularly toxic form of microplastics, tire wear particles have been linked to the acute mortality of juvenile fish in urban streams (Tian et al. Science, 2021).  We have been developing methods for sampling for tire wear particles in local high-traffic parking lots, stormwater, and aquatic sediments.   We also have been developing methods using digestion, density separation, microscopic visualization, and particle counting.  So far, we have found tire wear particles in every sample we have collected; sometimes at alarming levels!  We have also been conducting toxicity tests in the lab using tire wear particles and their leachate.   You can read more about these projects here and here.