Damia Barcelo is the director of Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), director of the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences and the chief editor ofScience of the Total Environment. On October 24, 2019, he accepted our invitation and visited our school. During his visit, he gave the academic lectureAnalyses, occurrence and removal of microplastic pollution in water (and soil): Current perspectives and future directions. The lecture was hosted by associate professor Sui Qian, who is also the deputy director of Department of Environmental Engineering in School of Resources and Environmental Engineering. About 100 teachers and students attended the lecture.

In the lecture, Professor Damia Barcelo introduced the ecological effects of microplastics in the environment and pollution characteristics of microplastics. From the perspectives of Sampling methods, extraction techniques and analytical methods, he also talked about the advantages and disadvantages in the current analytical methods for microplastics. In summary, he mentioned distribution and final condition of microplastics in the environment and the prospect of microplastics research was also presented. In Q&A part, he also discussed microplastics’ size effect, analytical methods and future direction with attendees.

After the lecture, Professor Damia Barcelo visited the State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Process and conducted in-depth exchanges and seminars.