SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, Oslo, 0314, Norway.
SINTEF Ocean, Trondheim, 7465, Norway.
Environ Sci Technol. 2017 Nov 7;51(21):12058-12060. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b04051. Epub 2017 Oct 12.
Plastics are one of the most widely used materials and, in most cases, they are designed to have long life times. Thus, plastics contain a complex blend of stabilizers that prevent them from degrading too quickly. Unfortunately, many of the most advantageous properties of plastics such as their chemical, physical and biological inertness and durability present challenges when plastic is released into the environment. Common plastics such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are extremely persistent in the environment, where they undergo very slow fragmentation (projected to take centuries) into small particles through photo-, physical, and biological degradation processes. The fragmentation of the material into increasingly smaller pieces is an unavoidable stage of the degradation process. Ultimately, plastic materials degrade to micron-sized particles (microplastics), which are persistent in the environment and present a potential source of harm for organisms.
塑料是应用最广泛的材料之一，在大多数情况下，它们被设计成具有较长的使用寿命。因此，塑料中含有复杂的稳定剂混合物，以防止它们过快降解。不幸的是，塑料的许多最有利的特性，如化学、物理和生物惰性以及耐用性，在塑料释放到环境中时带来了挑战。常见的塑料，如聚乙烯（PE）、聚丙烯（PP）、聚苯乙烯（PS）和聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET），在环境中极其持久，它们通过光、物理和生物降解过程非常缓慢地（预计需要几个世纪）碎裂成小颗粒。材料碎裂成越来越小的碎片是降解过程中不可避免的阶段。最终，塑料材料降解为微米级颗粒（微塑料），这些颗粒在环境中持久存在，并可能对生物造成危害。
