Kim Taeho, Park Kyungtae, Hong Jinkee
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
J Hazard Mater. 2022 Feb 15;424(Pt C):127630. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127630. Epub 2021 Oct 30.
Microplastics that are chemically and physically changed by exposure to environmental stress are emerging as a potential hazard to human health. Research on plastics exposed to long-term environmental stress is fundamentally needed. In this study, four plastics (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene [ABS], polyvinyl chloride [PVC], polystyrene [PS], and polyethylene [PE]) were selected to describe nature-derived microplastics and to analyze their chemical/physical changes, which are potential hazards to the human health, by environmental stress. To mimic the microplastic exposed to long-term environmental stress, we used accelerated aging, lab-scale aging in the environmental conditions((1) UV (2) enzyme (3) seawater). To quantify the percentage of the microplastic size changes, the image patterns of the generated microplastics were converted into numerical values using image-j. The size of the microplastics was reduced by at least 32% in (3) seawater environmental conditions. PE was reduced by at least 46% compared to the size of the bare sample in the environmental conditions. Significantly, the size of the PE has decreased by more than 87% in (3) seawater environmental conditions; also, chemical composition change (-O-CO-/-OH group formation) but not crystallinity changes through infrared and thermal analysis. Therefore, our results suggest that microplastic (PE) exposed to the ocean induces the potential hazards to affect human health.
因暴露于环境压力而发生化学和物理变化的微塑料正成为对人类健康的一种潜在危害。从根本上来说，需要对暴露于长期环境压力下的塑料进行研究。在本研究中，选择了四种塑料（丙烯腈-丁二烯-苯乙烯共聚物[ABS]、聚氯乙烯[PVC]、聚苯乙烯[PS]和聚乙烯[PE]）来描述天然来源的微塑料，并分析其因环境压力而产生的化学/物理变化，这些变化对人类健康具有潜在危害。为了模拟暴露于长期环境压力下的微塑料，我们采用了加速老化、在环境条件下（(1)紫外线 (2)酶 (3)海水）进行实验室规模的老化。为了量化微塑料尺寸变化的百分比，使用Image-J将生成的微塑料的图像模式转换为数值。在(3)海水环境条件下，微塑料的尺寸至少减小了32%。与环境条件下未处理样品的尺寸相比，PE至少减小了46%。值得注意的是，在(3)海水环境条件下，PE的尺寸减小了超过87%；此外，通过红外和热分析发现有化学成分变化（形成-O-CO-/-OH基团）但无结晶度变化。因此，我们的结果表明，暴露于海洋中的微塑料（PE）会引发影响人类健康的潜在危害。
