Abstract
A method based on pressurized fluid extraction (PFE) was developed for measuring microplastics in environmental samples. This method can address some limitations of the current microplastic methods and provide laboratories with a simple analytical method for quantifying common microplastics in a range of environmental samples. The method was initially developed by recovering 101% to 111% of spiked plastics on glass beads and was then applied to a composted municipal waste sample with spike recoveries ranging from 85% to 94%. The results from municipal waste samples and soil samples collected from an industrial area demonstrated that the method is a promising alternative for determining the concentration and identity of microplastics in environmental samples.
Highlights
The proliferation of plastics material is an issue of increasing global concern, as there is mounting evidence of the risks posed by microplastics in the environment.[1−5] Microplastics have been reported in marine waters,[9−12] freshwaters,[13−16] marine species,[17−20] and some terrestrial environments.[21,22]
Microplastic particles smaller than 20 μm are of concern as they can be more readily incorporated in the biosphere through ingestion and other mechanisms.[30]
The results presented in this work provide evidence that a pressurized fluid extraction (PFE) based extraction method can be used to quantify and identify microplastics in a variety of environmental materials
Summary
The proliferation of plastics material is an issue of increasing global concern, as there is mounting evidence of the risks posed by microplastics in the environment.[1−5] Microplastics have been reported in marine waters,[9−12] freshwaters,[13−16] marine species,[17−20] and some terrestrial environments.[21,22] Despite this there is a lack of knowledge on the distribution of microplastics in these environments, terrestrial landmasses.[6−8] In these studies, a wide variety of methods have been used to identify and quantify microplastics which can make comparisons of large-scale results difficult.[23]. While plastic fragments larger than 1 mm can be recovered and identified in a straightforward manner, with current methods the assay of plastic particles smaller than 1 mm is more problematic. Alternative procedures involving specialized equipment and denser salts (NaI and ZnCl2)[17,27] have been used for sediments with some success but the denser salts are expensive and samples with high organic content, such as wastewater, have been reported to cause problems.[25] Enzymatic digestion, peroxide digestion and acid digestion have been reported with varying degrees of success for high organic content materials such as biota and wastewater.[25,28] Many of these methods report numbers of fragments of plastic which is important information from a risk assessment perspective but can be difficult to relate to a concentration.[23,29] The size of plastic particles assayed in sediments seem to have a practical limit of approximately 20−40 μm.[17,30] Microplastic particles smaller than 20 μm are of concern as they can be more readily incorporated in the biosphere through ingestion and other mechanisms.[30] There is evidence that microplastics particles can absorb chemical pollutants, complicating an assessment of their environmental impacts[31]
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