Squid-bone sponge found to soak up 99.8 per cent of microplastics

A sponge made from a fusion of cotton fibre and squid bone could help to clear some of the world's microplastic pollution after a team of Chinese researchers found it can soak up as much as 99.8 per cent of the particles from water samples.

Researchers from the University of Wuhan and Guangxi University produced the fibrous foam by combining cellulose fibres from cotton and the tough biopolymer chitin, which forms a squid's skeleton.

When deployed in water, the sponge was found to...