Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain; Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Universidad de Alcalá, E-28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.
Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Jun 20;722:137904. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137904. Epub 2020 Mar 12.
We investigated the presence of microplastics and other anthropogenic litter in the sediments adhered to rocks of an Arctic freshwater lake at Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard Archipelago, 78°N; 11°E). Most of the sampled microparticles were fibers (>90%). The identification of polymer types and additives was performed by combining three spectroscopic techniques, namely Raman Microscopy, Fourier-Transform Infrared microspectroscopy (μFTIR) and Synchrotron Radiation μFTIR (SR-FTIR). SR-FTIR confirmed the presence of poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers, while RAMAN spectroscopy provided evidence of fibers containing industrial additives. Our results estimated an average concentration of 400 microparticles/m of rocks identified as anthropogenic litter, which included an estimation of 90 microplastics/m identified as polyester fibers; the rest are mostly natural fibers with evidence of anthropogenic origin. Taken together, the results proved the occurrence of anthropogenic pollutants in remote polar areas. Their probable origin is the long range atmospheric transport.
我们研究了附着在北极淡水湖岩石上的沉积物中微塑料和其他人为垃圾的存在。大多数采样的微颗粒是纤维（>90%）。通过结合三种光谱技术，即拉曼显微镜、傅里叶变换红外显微镜（μFTIR）和同步辐射μFTIR（SR-FTIR），对聚合物类型和添加剂进行了鉴定。SR-FTIR 证实了存在聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯纤维，而 RAMAN 光谱提供了含有工业添加剂的纤维的证据。我们的结果估计，每平方米岩石上有 400 个被认定为人为垃圾的微颗粒，其中包括 90 个被认定为聚酯纤维的微塑料；其余的大多是天然纤维，有证据表明其来源是人为的。总的来说，这些结果证明了在偏远的极地地区存在人为污染物。它们可能的来源是长距离大气传输。
