Pollutants in microplastic - What are they, how can they be determinated? What about the plasticizers, flame retardants or similar additives - what is the leakage mechanism and concentration range?
Thank you
ATR will reveal the nature of additives, if the polymer has no functional groups then leakage can be more.
Microplastics in seafood: benchmark protocol for their extraction
and characterization.
Published in Environmental Pollution (2016)
Alexandre Dehaut, Anne-Laure Cassone, Laura Frère, Ludovic Hermabessière, Charlotte Himber, Emmanuel Rinnert, Gilles Rivière, Christophe Lambert, Philippe Soudant, Arnaud Huvet, Guillaume
Duflos and Ika Paul-Pont.
Published in Environmental Pollution (2016)
Abstract: Pollution of the oceans by microplastics (< 5 mm) represents a major environmental problem. To date, a limited number of studies have investigated the level of contamination of marine
organisms collected in situ. For extraction and characterization of microplastics in biological samples, the crucial step is the identification of solvent(s) or chemical(s) that efficiently dissolve organic matter without degrading plastic polymers for their identification in a time and cost effective way. Most published papers, as well as OSPAR recommendations for the development of a common monitoring protocol for plastic particles in fish and shellfish at the European level, use protocols containing nitric acid to digest the biological tissues, despite reports of polyamide degradation with this chemical. In the present study, six existing approaches were tested and their effects were compared on up to 15 different plastic polymers, as well as their efficiency in digesting biological matrices. Plastic integrity was evaluated through microscopic inspection, weighing, pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, and Raman spectrometry before and after digestion. Tissues from mussels, crabs and fish were digested before being filtered on glass fibre filters. Digestion efficiency was evaluated through microscopical inspection of the filters and determination of the relative removal of organic matter content after digestion. Five out of the six tested protocols led to significant degradation of plastic particles and/or insufficient tissue digestion. The protocol using a KOH 10% solution and an incubation at 60 °C during a 24 h period led to an efficient digestion of biological tissues with no significant degradation on all tested polymers, except for cellulose acetate. This
protocol appeared to be the best compromise for extraction and later identification of microplastics in biological samples and should be implemented in further monitoring studies to ensure relevance and
comparison of environmental and seafood product quality studies.
The key problem is the proper sample cllection and preparation. If you have enogh samle for Soxhlet extraction, you can do LC-MS or GC-MS stduy on the extracts. By TGA you can determine the residual inorganic content, by WAXD you can identify the crystalline components.
thank you for your answers, I really appreciate it.
Could you be more specific on a kind of pollutants found in microplastics. Surley ATR IR and chromatography-MS could define the components, but does someone have experience on the kind of pollutants that could be found in microplastics?
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