College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, PR China.
State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China.
Environ Res. 2022 Mar;204(Pt B):112134. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.112134. Epub 2021 Sep 28.
Microplastics pollution in freshwater has attracted global attentions, but when microplastics are broken into nanoplastics, they may present higher toxicity mainly due to their greater potential to cross biological membranes. So far almost no work has been done on the separation and identification of nanoplastics in tap water. Herein we removed large particles from tap water by 0.45 μm filter and then sequentially screened nanoparticles in filtrate by Anopore with pore size of 200, 100, and 20 nm, the most frequent particle sizes of which concentrate at 255 nm, 148 nm, and 58 nm, respectively. Based on characterization of FTIR, AFM-IR and Pyr-GC/MS, the polymers were identified to be polyolefins, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polyamide, and some plastic additives. The abundance of nanoplastics with the most frequent particle sizes in range of 58-255 nm was 1.67-2.08 μg/L in tap water. This work provides a feasible method for separation and identification of nanoplastics in tap water, and manifests the existence of nanoplastics, which poses a potential threat to the health of residents.
微塑料污染已引起全球关注，然而微塑料一旦破碎为纳米塑料，其毒性可能更高，这主要是由于它们更有可能穿透生物膜。到目前为止，几乎没有研究致力于自来水中纳米塑料的分离和鉴定。本研究首先采用 0.45μm 滤膜去除自来水中的大颗粒，然后依次采用孔径为 200nm、100nm 和 20nm 的 Anopore 对滤出液中的纳米颗粒进行筛选，其中最常见的粒径分别集中在 255nm、148nm 和 58nm。通过傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）、原子力显微镜-红外光谱（AFM-IR）和吡啶-气相色谱/质谱联用（Pyr-GC/MS）分析，鉴定出这些聚合物为聚烯烃、聚苯乙烯、聚氯乙烯、聚酰胺和一些塑料添加剂。最常见粒径在 58nm-255nm 范围内的纳米塑料在自来水中的丰度为 1.67μg/L-2.08μg/L。本工作为自来水中纳米塑料的分离和鉴定提供了一种可行的方法，并表明了纳米塑料的存在，这对居民健康构成了潜在威胁。
