Abstract
Recently, microplastics pollution has attracted much attention in the environmental field, as researchers have found traces of microplastics in both marine and terrestrial ecological environments. Here, we reviewed and discussed the current progress on microplastics pollution in the marine environment from three main aspects including their identification and qualification methods, source and distribution, and fate and toxicity in a marine ecosystem. Microplastics in the marine environment originate from a variety of sources and distribute broadly all around the world, but their quantitative information is still lacking. Up to now, there have been no adequate and standard methods to identify and quantify the various types of microplastics, which need to be developed and unified. The fate of microplastics in the environment is particularly important as they may be transferred or accumulated in the biological chain. Meanwhile, microplastics may have a high adsorption capacity to pollutants, which is the basic research to further study their fate and joint toxicity in the environment. Therefore, all the findings are expected to fill the knowledge gaps in microplastics pollution and promote the development of relative regulations.
Highlights
Plastics are widely used in daily life because of their excellent properties such as strong anti-corrosion ability, low electrical and thermal conductivity, high strength-to-weight ratio, and low cost to manufacture
This review article summarized the current status of microplastics in the marine environment
The sampling methods were first described, and the identification methods including Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman, pyrolysis/thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA)-GC-MS, and other novel ways were compared to provide the researchers with the proper one to apply
Summary
Plastics are widely used in daily life because of their excellent properties such as strong anti-corrosion ability, low electrical and thermal conductivity, high strength-to-weight ratio, and low cost to manufacture. In addition to the marine environment, microplastics pollution has been found in continental waters and soil ecosystems [4,5,6,7,8]. Microplastics are generally referred to plastic particles smaller than 5 mm in size [9,10]. They have various colors (blue, red, black, transparent/white, etc.) and can be classified into different shape classes such as fragment, film, fiber, foam, and pellet [11,12]. The secondary sources of microplastics include fragments or fibers resulting from the breakdown or weathering of plastic debris in natural environments [14,15]. It is believed that understanding the current knowledge surrounding microplastics will provide the theoretical basis for effectively controlling plastics in order to minimize the environmental risks of microplastics
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