Taking the fight to microplastics with lasers

Press Release /

Until now, wastewater treatment plants have not been able to sufficiently filter out tiny microplastics in wastewater, but this could soon change: The first laser-drilled microplastic filter is being tested in a wastewater treatment plant. It contains sheets with extremely small holes just 10 micrometers in diameter. The technology to efficiently drill millions of such holes was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT, and now the institute’s engineers are scaling up ultrashort-pulse (USP) laser technology in the kW range. Visitors can learn more about the microplastic filter and ultrashort-pulse lasers at the Fraunhofer booth A6.441 at LASER World of PHOTONICS.