Department of Environment and Energy, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05006, South Korea.
Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg 41296, Sweden.
Environ Sci Technol. 2020 Oct 6;54(19):11905-11914. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c00942. Epub 2020 Sep 10.
Despite the numerous studies that have investigated the occurrence and fate of plastic particles in the environment, only a limited effort has been devoted toward exploring the characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) leached from microplastics. In this study, using excitation emission matrix-parallel factor analysis (EEM-PARAFAC), we explored the fluorescence signatures of plastic-derived DOM from commonly used plastic materials, which included two polymers (polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene (PS)), two additives (diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and bisphenol A (BPA)), and two commercial plastics. The exposure of the selected plastics to UV light facilitated the leaching of DOM measured in terms of dissolved organic carbon and fluorescence intensity. Four fluorescent components were identified, which included three protein/phenol-like components (C1, C3, and C4) and one humic-like component (C2). The C1 and C4 components were highly correlated with the amounts of DOM leached from DEHP and BPA, respectively, under both leaching conditions, while both C2 and C4 presented good correlations with the DOM leached from polymers under UV light. The C4 may serve as a good fluorescence proxy for DOM leached from BPA or BPA-containing plastics. This study highlights the overlooked issue of plastic-derived DOM leaching into the aquatic environment through optical characterization.
尽管已经有许多研究调查了环境中塑料颗粒的出现和命运，但只有有限的努力用于探索从微塑料中浸出的溶解有机物（DOM）的特征。在这项研究中，我们使用激发发射矩阵-平行因子分析（EEM-PARAFAC），探索了常用塑料材料（包括两种聚合物（聚氯乙烯（PVC）和聚苯乙烯（PS））、两种添加剂（邻苯二甲酸二辛酯（DEHP）和双酚 A（BPA））和两种商业塑料）中塑料衍生 DOM 的荧光特征。暴露于紫外线下的选定塑料促进了以溶解有机碳和荧光强度衡量的 DOM 的浸出。鉴定出了四个荧光成分，包括三个蛋白质/酚类成分（C1、C3 和 C4）和一个腐殖质样成分（C2）。在两种浸出条件下，C1 和 C4 成分与从 DEHP 和 BPA 浸出的 DOM 量高度相关，而 C2 和 C4 与在紫外线下从聚合物浸出的 DOM 均呈现良好的相关性。C4 可能是从 BPA 或含 BPA 的塑料中浸出的 DOM 的良好荧光探针。这项研究通过光学特征强调了被忽视的塑料衍生 DOM 浸出到水生环境中的问题。
