Noonan Michael J, Grechi Nicole, Mills C Lauren, de A M M Ferraz Marcia
The Irving K. Barber School of Sciences, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7 Canada.
Clinic of Ruminants, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Sonnenstr. 16, 85764 Oberschleißheim, Germany.
Microplast nanoplast. 2023;3(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s43591-023-00065-3. Epub 2023 Aug 1.
Recent years have seen considerable scientific attention devoted towards documenting the presence of microplastics (MPs) in environmental samples. Due to omnipresence of environmental microplastics, however, disentangling environmental MPs from sample contamination is a challenge. Hence, the environmental (collection site and laboratory) microplastics contamination of samples during processing is a reality that we must address, in order to generate reproducible and reliable data. Here we investigated published literature and have found that around 1/5 of studies failed to use blank controls in their experiments. Additionally, only 34% of the studies used a controlled air environment for their sample processing (laminar flow, fume hood, closed laboratory, clean room, etc.). In that regard, we have also shown that preparing samples in the fume hood, leads to more microplastics > 1 μm) contamination than preparing it in the laboratory bench and the laminar flow. Although it did not completely prevent microplastics contamination, the processing of sample inside the laminar flow is the best option to reduce sample contamination during processing. Overall, we showed that blank controls are a must in microplastics sample preparation, but it is often overlooked by researchers.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43591-023-00065-3.
近年来，科学界对记录环境样本中微塑料（MPs）的存在给予了相当多的关注。然而，由于环境微塑料无处不在，将环境中的微塑料与样本污染区分开来是一项挑战。因此，在样本处理过程中，样本受到环境（采集地点和实验室）微塑料污染是我们必须面对的现实，以便生成可重复和可靠的数据。在此，我们对已发表的文献进行了调查，发现约五分之一的研究在实验中未使用空白对照。此外，只有34%的研究在样本处理过程中使用了受控的空气环境（层流、通风橱、封闭实验室、洁净室等）。在这方面，我们还表明，在通风橱中制备样本比在实验室工作台和层流中制备会导致更多大于1μm的微塑料污染。虽然它不能完全防止微塑料污染，但在层流中处理样本是减少处理过程中样本污染的最佳选择。总体而言，我们表明空白对照在微塑料样本制备中是必不可少的，但研究人员经常忽视这一点。
在线版本包含可在10.1186/s43591-023-00065-3获取的补充材料。
