Zhang Yue, Slade Jonathan H, Ault Andrew P, Chan Arthur W H
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2025 Apr 29;59(16):7810-7819. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.5c03264. Epub 2025 Apr 14.
Micro- and nanoplastic particles (MNPPs) are emerging pollutants with significant environmental impacts due to their persistence, increasing concentrations, and potential health risks. Most MNPP studies have focused on identifying, quantifying, and assessing their ecotoxicological impacts in water or soil. However, the atmosphere is crucial in transporting and chemically transforming MNPPs. Further, well-established aerosol particle characterization techniques are underutilized and inconsistently applied in existing atmospheric MNPP studies. This perspective synthesizes the existing literature and addresses future research needs unique to atmospheric MNPPs, highlighting the need to bridge the microplastics and atmospheric aerosol communities to better understand their sources, chemical transformations, transport mechanisms, as well as their health effects and ecological impacts, which differ from those in soil and water. Advancing research in these areas requires standardized methods and a multidisciplinary approach to comprehensively assess MNPP interactions across environmental compartments, providing essential insights into their environmental fate and risks.
微塑料和纳米塑料颗粒（MNPPs）是新兴污染物，因其持久性、浓度增加以及潜在健康风险而对环境产生重大影响。大多数MNPPs研究都集中在识别、量化和评估它们在水或土壤中的生态毒理学影响。然而，大气在MNPPs的传输和化学转化中起着关键作用。此外，成熟的气溶胶颗粒表征技术在现有的大气MNPPs研究中未得到充分利用且应用不一致。这一观点综合了现有文献，并阐述了大气MNPPs特有的未来研究需求，强调需要弥合微塑料和大气气溶胶领域之间的差距，以更好地了解它们的来源、化学转化、传输机制以及它们对健康的影响和生态影响，这些与土壤和水中的情况不同。在这些领域推进研究需要标准化方法和多学科方法，以全面评估MNPPs在不同环境介质间的相互作用，从而深入了解它们的环境归宿和风险。
