Development and Validation of an Efficient Method for Processing Microplastics in Biota Samples

Autor: Zimin Yu, Eddy Y. Zeng, Liang-Ying Liu, Charles S. Wong, Bo Peng
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 38:1400-1408
ISSN: 1552-8618
0730-7268
DOI: 10.1002/etc.4416
Popis: The impacts of microplastics on aquatic ecosystems and biota are gaining attention globally. Although microplastics have been widely detected in biota, there currently are few standardized detection and identification methods. The present study developed a novel one-step digestion method which was evaluated with mussel and fish samples. This method employed nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide (HNO3 :H2 O2 = 4:1 by volume) as digestion reagents, which completely digested biota samples 0.05) were observed for all tested polymers. Fourier transform infrared spectral analyses demonstrated that the method did not degrade any of the polymers except for polyethylene terephthalate. The method was demonstrated with mussel and fish samples collected from the Pearl River delta, south China, and was able to recover microplastics effectively. Overall, the present method is time-saving and easy to operate, with low procedural cross-contamination. The properties of microplastics recovered by the present method remained largely intact, greatly benefiting subsequent qualitative and quantitative analyses. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;38:1400-1408. © 2019 SETAC.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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