Fig. 4: Expected settling velocity calculated using Ferguson and Church compared to our observed experimental values for clean and biofilmed microplastics.
From: Non-buoyant microplastic settling velocity varies with biofilm growth and ambient water salinity
a Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (n = 38) and b polyvinyl chloride (PVC) (n = 383). The expected settling velocity of particles calculated using Ferguson and Church37 is indicated by the green solid lines, points and shading, the observed experimental clean particle values are shown by solid red lines, points and shading and the observed experimental biofilmed particle values are indicated by the solid blue lines, points and shading. Marginal density plots indicate the distribution of velocity and equivalent diameter data. This highlights that grain size variation must be included in predictive models.
