Hernandez-Charpak Yvan D, Kansara Harshal J, Lodge Jeffrey S, Eddingsaas Nathan C, Lewis Christopher L, Trabold Thomas A, Diaz Carlos A
Golisano Institute for Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Rochester, NY, 14623, USA.
Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, RIT, Rochester, NY, 14623, USA.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2025 Jan 31. doi: 10.1007/s11356-025-35978-4.
With the increasing use of biodegradable plastics in agriculture and food packaging, it has become increasingly important to assess the effects of their fragmentation and mineralization in the environment (i.e., soil, compost). PBAT is a biodegradable polyester widely used in biodegradable mulch films that are intended to fragment and mineralize in soil. To study these effects, novel methodologies are needed to quantify PBAT microplastics in these diverse environments. This work seeks to answer whether gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) can be used as a tool to assess PBAT microplastics in soil. A method was developed that allows PBAT soil extraction by ultrasonication and GCMS quantification after a fatty acid methyl ester derivatization. To validate the method, an industrial compost degradation experiment was carried out to evidence the weight loss of PBAT film and quantify the micro- and nano-plastic generated from them. The presented method improved the existing resolution by, at least, one order of magnitude compared to reported methods. In conclusion, a novel, simple, affordable, and reproducible methodology for PBAT microplastic detection was developed improving the limits of detection and quantification. The method was tested on an industrial compost experiment, demonstrating the ability to trace the totality of the plastic over time, evidencing that PBAT is consumed in the industrial compost environment.
随着可生物降解塑料在农业和食品包装中的使用日益增加，评估其在环境（即土壤、堆肥）中的碎片化和矿化作用变得越来越重要。聚己二酸/对苯二甲酸丁二醇酯（PBAT）是一种可生物降解的聚酯，广泛用于旨在在土壤中碎片化和矿化的可生物降解地膜。为了研究这些影响，需要新的方法来量化这些不同环境中的PBAT微塑料。这项工作旨在回答气相色谱-质谱联用仪（GCMS）是否可以用作评估土壤中PBAT微塑料的工具。开发了一种方法，该方法允许通过超声提取PBAT土壤，并在脂肪酸甲酯衍生化后进行GCMS定量。为了验证该方法，进行了工业堆肥降解实验，以证明PBAT薄膜的重量损失，并量化由它们产生的微塑料和纳米塑料。与已报道的方法相比，所提出的方法将现有分辨率至少提高了一个数量级。总之，开发了一种用于PBAT微塑料检测的新颖、简单、经济且可重复的方法，提高了检测和定量的限。该方法在工业堆肥实验中进行了测试，证明了能够随时间追踪塑料的总量，表明PBAT在工业堆肥环境中被消耗。
