Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Surrey, GU27XH, United Kingdom; Deakin University, Geelong, Institute for Frontier Materials, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, 3216, Australia.
Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Surrey, GU27XH, United Kingdom.
J Hazard Mater. 2020 Feb 15;384:121393. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.121393. Epub 2019 Oct 31.
The presence of nanoplastics in water has become a major environmental concern in the last decade however the knowledge on the origin and formation of these emerging contaminants is lacking due to analytical challenges in detection and quantification techniques. The release of nanoplastics due to the fragmentation of microplastics extracted from a facial scrub and the resulting toxicity on aquatic species are reported here for the first time. The daily use of 4 g of facial scrub could release up to 10 microplastics of 400 nm in size per litre of wastewater from household drains. Turbulences created by mixing or pumping induced the fragmentation of microplastics into nanoplastics smaller than 10 nm via a crack propagation and failure mechanism, increasing the number of particles in water by one order of magnitude. Compared to microplastics at a fixed concentration number of 6.8 × 10 part./mL, the generated nanoplastics initiated the death of 54% more cells in zebrafish by passive ingestion via skin diffusion which therefore pose a real threat for aquatic living organisms. These results stress the need to reduce the release of nano/microplastics in the aquatic environment to prevent the contamination of all trophic levels.
在过去十年中，水中纳米塑料的存在已成为一个主要的环境关注点。然而，由于检测和量化技术的分析挑战，这些新兴污染物的来源和形成知之甚少。本研究首次报道了由于面部磨砂膏中提取的微塑料碎裂而导致纳米塑料的释放，以及这些纳米塑料对水生生物的毒性。每天使用 4 克面部磨砂膏，可能会导致每升家庭污水中释放多达 10 个 400nm 大小的微塑料。通过裂纹扩展和失效机制，混合或泵送产生的湍流将微塑料碎裂成小于 10nm 的纳米塑料，使水中的颗粒数量增加了一个数量级。与固定浓度为 6.8×10 个/mL 的微塑料相比，通过皮肤扩散被动摄入生成的纳米塑料使斑马鱼的细胞死亡增加了 54%，这对水生生物构成了真正的威胁。这些结果强调了需要减少纳米/微塑料在水生环境中的释放，以防止所有营养水平的污染。
