Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Coastal Engineering, School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China.
Guangdong Eco-engineering Polytechnc, Guangzhou 510520, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Mar 15;760:144316. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144316. Epub 2020 Dec 9.
Microplastic pollution in marine environments is of particular concern on its risk to the ecosystem. To assess and manage microplastic contaminants, their quantitative detection in environmental samples is a high priority. However, uncertainties of current methods still exist when estimating their abundances, particularly with fine-grained (<1 mm) microplastics. This work reports a novel thermoanalytical method for quantifying microplastics by measuring the contents of microplastic-derived carbon (MPC) in samples under the premise of nearly eliminating the limit of their particle appearances. After validating the method via samples with the spiked microplastics, we have conducted a case study on sediment core H43 that spanned 1925-2009 CE from the Yellow Sea for further illustrating the high reliability and practicability of this method for quantifying microplastics in natural samples. Our results have demonstrated that the proposed method may be a promising technique to determine the mass-related concentrations of the total microplastics in marine sediments for evaluating their pollution status and quantitative contribution to marine carbon storage.
海洋环境中的微塑料污染尤其令人关注，因为其对生态系统存在风险。为了评估和管理微塑料污染物，对环境样本中微塑料的定量检测是当务之急。然而，目前的方法在估计其丰度时仍然存在不确定性，特别是对于细颗粒（<1 毫米）的微塑料。本工作报道了一种新的热分析方法，通过测量样品中微塑料衍生碳（MPC）的含量，在几乎消除其颗粒外观限制的前提下，定量微塑料。通过对添加微塑料的样品进行方法验证后，我们对来自黄海的 1925-2009 年的沉积物芯 H43 进行了案例研究，进一步说明了该方法在定量自然样品中微塑料方面的高可靠性和实用性。研究结果表明，该方法可能是一种很有前途的技术，可以用来确定海洋沉积物中总微塑料的质量相关浓度，以评估其污染状况和对海洋碳储存的定量贡献。
