Al Harraq Ahmed, Bharti Bhuvnesh
Cain Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, United States.
ACS Environ Au. 2021 Sep 10;2(1):3-10. doi: 10.1021/acsenvironau.1c00016. eCollection 2022 Jan 19.
Microplastics are sub-millimeter-sized fragments of plastics and a relatively new class of pollutant increasingly found in the environment. Due to their size and surface area to volume ratio, the physicochemical characteristics of microplastics can diverge from those of their macroscopic counterparts. This is partly why it is challenging to understand their origin, analyze their behavior, and predict their fates in the environment compared to large pollutants. We believe that adopting a view of microplastics as a colloid provides a holistic framework that connects their physical properties and surface chemistries with observations of their dynamics in the environment. In particular, we discuss the role of fundamental principles of colloid science in interpreting phenomena of wetting, adsorption, aggregation, and transport of microplastics. Colloid and interface science can provide the tools to couple or decouple the physicochemical behaviors of microplastics, which may aid in understanding the environmental challenge both from a fundamental perspective and with respect to practical remediation methods.
微塑料是亚毫米级的塑料碎片，是一类在环境中日益常见的相对较新的污染物。由于其尺寸和表面积与体积之比，微塑料的物理化学特性可能与其宏观对应物不同。这部分解释了为什么与大型污染物相比，理解微塑料的来源、分析其行为并预测其在环境中的归宿具有挑战性。我们认为，将微塑料视为一种胶体的观点提供了一个整体框架，将其物理性质和表面化学与对其在环境中动态的观察联系起来。特别是，我们讨论了胶体科学基本原理在解释微塑料的润湿、吸附、聚集和传输现象中的作用。胶体与界面科学可以提供工具，来耦合或解耦微塑料的物理化学行为，这可能有助于从基础角度以及实际修复方法方面理解环境挑战。
