There are plenty of fish in the sea. Some are big, and some are small. Some are slow, and some are skittish. Some are bold and bright. And some are actually fish-shaped robots, made to absorb microplastics. A new study in Nano Letters reveals that researchers recently developed a tiny robot that looks and moves like a fish, collecting detrimental plastic particles as it swims through the water.
The plastic particulates that pervade our oceans and waterways threaten wildlife, and they typically stick around. In fact, microplastics can take thousands of years to deteriorate, and they tend to fall into the fissures between rocks at the bottom of bodies of water, making them a challenge to clean up in the meantime.
In recent years, researchers consider small, self-propelled robots as a potential solution to this problem. The only question is, how would these robots work?
Researchers from the American Chemical ...
