Global plastics production continues to grow, reaching 335 million tons by 2016. The widespread use of plastic materials and the irrational disposal of plastic waste have resulted in a large amount of plastic waste entering the environment. Plastic waste entering the environment can be environmentally friendly and Under the combined action of biological factors, it degrades into countless tiny plastic particles. When its diameter is less than 5 mm, it can be defined as micro-plastic. Micro-plastic pollution in water environment has become a global environmental problem. Currently, despite domestic and international The research on micro-plastics in water environment has been widely carried out, but there is still no unified analytical detection method.
Wang Wenfeng, a doctoral student in the Department of Pollution Ecology of the Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the guidance of researcher Wang Jun, reviewed the investigation methods of micro-plastics in water environments at home and abroad. The paper collected field samples of micro-plastic samples in water, sediments and aquatic organisms. The laboratory processing, instrumental analysis and other aspects are summarized, and the advantages and disadvantages of various methods are discussed in depth.
The paper was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Hundred Talents Program (Y329671K01), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Chinese-Non-Joint Research Center Project (Y623321K01) and the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation Project (No. 2016CFB284). The article is based on Investigation of microplastics in aquatic environments: An overview of the Methods used, from field sampling to laboratory analysis, published in the International Journal of Analytical Chemistry Trends in Analytical Chemistry.