Microfiber emission from a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Hungary.

Since the ingestion of both natural and anthropogenic microfibers produces a deleterious effect on aquatic organisms, it is crucial to explore the emission of these pollutants by WWTPs into the receiving water bodies, such as rivers. Cellulose- and petroleum-based microfibers, as well as microplastic particles, were collected from the effluent of a municipal WWTP operating with activated sludge technology in Budapest, Hungary. During two sampling campaigns organized in February and April of 2023 on different working days and at different times of the day, 123-145 L of effluent was sieved and filtered. The organic matter was removed by hydrogen-peroxide treatment. All fibers and particles larger than 10 µm were counted, and using a fluorescence microscope, the fibers were geometrically characterized in terms of length and diameter. Each fiber was individually identified by transflection-FT-IR method. The fiber concentration varied in the range of 1.88-2.84 and 4.25-6.79 items/L during the 7th and the 16th week of 2023, respectively. In February and April, the proportion of microfibers in the solid particles was 78.3 and 94.7%, respectively. In the effluent the cellulose-based microfibers were dominant (53-91%), while among the petroleum-based microfibers, polyester occurred most often. The median length of cellulose-based fibers was considerably higher in April than in February (650 vs. 1250 µm), and simultaneously the median diameter also increased from 21 to 29 µm. This behaviour was also seen, albeit to a lesser extent, in connection to microfibers derived from petroleum. The treated wastewater's daily microfiber transport to the Danube River varied between 0.44 - 0.69 and 0.94-1.53 billion in February and April 2023, respectively.

A multitechnique approach for discrimination and identification of lipsticks for forensic purposes.

Cosmetics are becoming more and more popular; consequently, the chance of finding them as microtraces at a crime scene increases. They are easily transferable and can provide a link between a suspect and a victim. For this reason, identifying and comparative analysis of red lipstick - the most popular and used - is required. The aim of this study was to apply a multitechnique methodology for the comparative forensic analysis of the red lipsticks traces of a very similar hue. For this purpose, four methods of different physicochemical basics - two nondestructive spectroscopic and two destructive separation techniques - were used. The possibilities and advantages of attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), confocal Raman microscopy (CRM), capillary electrophoresis (MEKC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) have been combined. Specially prepared lipstick traces in various forms (imprints, smears) on different surfaces (absorbent and nonabsorbent) were analyzed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed methods. The premise is that if two methods yield a consistent result, the investigation is terminated at this stage. All investigated traces were properly identified. First, the ATR-FTIR method as a nondestructive technique is recommended. Sometimes, due to strong interferences from the substrates, the newly proposed method with the use of confocal Raman microscopy may be an alternative. The next recommendation is the MEKC method. Only in case of the absence of unambiguous conclusions, it is proposed to use the GC-MS method. This methodology has the potential to be applied in the comparative analysis of red lipsticks for forensic purposes.

Raman spectroscopy and capillary electrophoresis applied to forensic colour inkjet printer inks analysis.

Forensic laboratories are increasingly engaged in the examination of fraudulent documents, and what is important, in many cases these are inkjet-printed documents. That is why systematic approaches to inkjet printer inks comparison and identification have been carried out by both non-destructive and destructive methods. In this study, micro-Raman spectroscopy and capillary electrophoresis (CE) were applied to the analysis of colour inkjet printer inks. Micro-Raman spectroscopy was used to study the chemical composition of colour inks in situ on a paper surface. It helps to characterize and differentiate inkjet inks, and can be used to create a spectra database of inks taken from different cartridge brands and cartridge numbers. Capillary electrophoresis in micellar electrophoretic capillary chromatography mode was applied to separate colour and colourless components of inks, enabling group identification of those components which occur in a sufficient concentration (giving intensive peaks). Finally, on the basis of the obtained results, differentiation of the analysed inks was performed. Twenty-three samples of inkjet printer inks were examined and the discriminating power (DP) values for both presented methods were established in the routine work of experts during the result interpretation step. DP was found to be 94.0% (Raman) and 95.6% (CE) when all the analysed ink samples were taken into account, and it was 96.7% (Raman) and 98.4% (CE), when only cartridges with different index numbers were considered.