Jurkschat Leonie, Gill Alasdair J, Milner Robin, Holzinger Rupert, Evangeliou Nikolaos, Eckhardt Sabine, Materić Dušan
Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy, Leipzig University, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
Department of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), 04318, Leipzig, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 13;15(1):1864. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-84210-9.
Nanoplastics are suspected to pollute every environment on Earth, including very remote areas reached via atmospheric transport. We approached the challenge of measuring environmental nanoplastics by combining high-sensitivity TD-PTR-MS (thermal desorption-proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry) with trained mountaineers sampling high-altitude glaciers ("citizen science"). Particles < 1 μm were analysed for common polymers (polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and tire wear particles), revealing nanoplastic concentrations ranging 2-80 ng mL at five of 14 sites. The dominant polymer types found in this study were tire wear, polystyrene and polyethylene particles (41%, 28% and 12%, respectively). Lagrangian dispersion modelling was used to reconstruct possible sources of micro- and nanoplastic emissions for those observations, which appear to lie largely to the west of the Alps. France, Spain and Switzerland have the highest contributions to the modelled emissions. The citizen science approach was found to be feasible providing strict quality control measures are in place, and is an effective way to be able to collect data from remote and inaccessible regions across the world.
纳米塑料被怀疑污染地球上的每一个环境，包括通过大气传输到达的非常偏远的地区。我们通过将高灵敏度的热解吸-质子转移反应-质谱（TD-PTR-MS）与训练有素的登山者对高海拔冰川进行采样（“公民科学”）相结合，来应对测量环境中纳米塑料的挑战。对小于1微米的颗粒进行了常见聚合物（聚乙烯、聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯、聚丙烯、聚氯乙烯、聚苯乙烯和轮胎磨损颗粒）分析，在14个地点中的5个地点发现纳米塑料浓度范围为2 - 80纳克/毫升。本研究中发现的主要聚合物类型是轮胎磨损颗粒、聚苯乙烯颗粒和聚乙烯颗粒（分别占41%、28%和12%）。利用拉格朗日扩散模型重建了这些观测结果中微塑料和纳米塑料排放的可能来源，这些来源似乎主要位于阿尔卑斯山以西。法国、西班牙和瑞士对模拟排放的贡献最大。结果发现，只要有严格的质量控制措施，公民科学方法是可行的，并且是一种能够从世界各地偏远和难以到达的地区收集数据的有效方式。
