Abstract
A model study on isotactic polypropylene (iPP) films as commonly used in packaging was performed for simulating the process of microplastics formation from large-scale objects like littered packaging material,. Accelerated ultraviolet (UV) ageing in a Xenotest device resulted in chemical degradation and oxidation of the polymer, together with fragmentation into sub-mm particles, within less than 48 h. Combining the results with an independent Arrhenius study allowed an estimate of the lifetime until sub-mm particle formation between 9 months and 3.2 years, depending on location and climate. The findings offer a possible explanation for the mass loss at the lower end of the particle size distribution of environmental microplastics and the divergence between input estimates and actually detected amounts of microplastics.
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