Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584CC Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584CC Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Nov 10;846:157371. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157371. Epub 2022 Jul 18.
Plastic pollution in the marine environment has been identified as a global problem; different polymer types and fragment sizes have been detected across all marine regions, from sea ice to the equator and the surface to the deep sea. However, quantification of marine plastics debris in the size range of nanoplastics (<1 μm) and ultrafine microplastics (<10 μm) is not constrained, because such minuscule particles are challenging to measure. In this work, we applied a novel analytical assay using Thermal Desorption - Proton Transfer Reaction - Mass Spectrometry (TD-PTR-MS), which is suitable to detect and identify plastics in the nanogram range. From two stations in the Wadden Sea (the Netherlands), we measured nanoplastics directly from seawater aliquots, and from filters with different mesh sizes. Our results show the presence of Polystyrene (PS) and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanopalstics as well as ultrafine microplastics in the Wadden Sea water column. The mass concentration of PS nanoplastics was 4.2 μg/L on average, indicating a substantial contribution of nanoplastics to the Wadden Sea's total plastic budget.
海洋环境中的塑料污染已被确认为一个全球性问题；在所有海洋区域，从海冰到赤道以及从表面到深海，都检测到了不同类型的聚合物和碎片大小。然而，对于纳米塑料（<1 μm）和超细微塑料（<10 μm）大小范围内的海洋塑料碎片的量化是受到限制的，因为如此微小的颗粒难以测量。在这项工作中，我们应用了一种新的分析方法，即热解吸-质子转移反应-质谱法（TD-PTR-MS），该方法适用于检测和识别纳克范围内的塑料。我们从瓦登海（荷兰）的两个站点直接从海水等分试样以及不同网眼尺寸的过滤器中测量了纳米塑料。我们的结果表明，瓦登海的水柱中存在聚苯乙烯（PS）和聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）纳米塑料以及超细微塑料。PS 纳米塑料的质量浓度平均为 4.2 μg/L，表明纳米塑料对瓦登海总塑料预算有很大的贡献。
