Ekvall Mikael T, Lundqvist Martin, Kelpsiene Egle, Šileikis Eimantas, Gunnarsson Stefán B, Cedervall Tommy
NanoLund, Lund University Box 118 22100 Lund Sweden.
Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology, Lund University Box 124 22100 Lund Sweden
Nanoscale Adv. 2018 Dec 4;1(3):1055-1061. doi: 10.1039/c8na00210j. eCollection 2019 Mar 12.
Large amounts of plastics are released into the environment every day. These released plastics have a clearly documented negative effect on wildlife. Much research attention has been given to large plastic pieces and microplastics. However, if the breakdown of plastics is a continous process, eventually nanoplastics will be produced. Nanoplastics will affect wildlife differently from larger plastic pieces. We have studied the products formed by the mechanical breakdown of two commonly used polystyrene products, takeaway coffee cup lids and expanded polystyrene foam. After breakdown using a food processor, we characterized the breakdown products using seven different methods and found nanosized polystyrene particles with different shapes and negative or nearly neutral surface charges. These results clearly demonstrate that daily-use polystyrene products can break down into nanoparticles. Model polystyrene particles with different sizes and surface modifications have previously been shown to have different negative effects on wildlife. This indicates that breakdown nanoparticles might have the potential to cause cocktail effects in nature.
每天都有大量塑料被释放到环境中。这些被释放的塑料对野生动物有着有明确记录的负面影响。大量的研究关注集中在大塑料碎片和微塑料上。然而，如果塑料的分解是一个持续的过程，最终将会产生纳米塑料。纳米塑料对野生动物的影响将不同于较大的塑料碎片。我们研究了两种常用聚苯乙烯产品——外卖咖啡杯盖和发泡聚苯乙烯泡沫经机械分解后形成的产物。在用食品加工机进行分解后，我们用七种不同方法对分解产物进行了表征，发现了具有不同形状以及负电荷或接近中性表面电荷的纳米级聚苯乙烯颗粒。这些结果清楚地表明，日常使用的聚苯乙烯产品能够分解成纳米颗粒。先前已表明，具有不同尺寸和表面修饰的模型聚苯乙烯颗粒对野生动物有不同的负面影响。这表明分解产生的纳米颗粒可能在自然界中具有造成混合效应的潜力。
