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Review: Micro- and macro-scale transport of tire wear particles in aquatic environments and risk control
Summary
Every time tires wear down on roads, they shed tiny plastic-like particles that eventually wash into rivers, lakes, and oceans. This review pulls together existing research on how these particles settle, travel, and build up in water — a key step in understanding where they end up and how they might affect aquatic life and, potentially, the food and water humans rely on. While it doesn't test new health effects, it lays the groundwork for figuring out how to reduce this widespread but often overlooked source of microplastic pollution.
Since the introduction of the microplastics (MPs) concept, these contaminants have received sustained global attention. Tire wear particles (TWPs), as a dominant anthropogenic MP fraction, have been the subject of rapidly expanding research in recent years. Sedimentation is the key process controlling the environmental fate and ecological effects of TWPs in aquatic environments, which act as their primary sink, transport pathway, and exposure medium. Elucidating TWP sedimentation mechanisms, transport behavior, and risk mitigation strategies is therefore critical to addressing their associated environmental problems. This review systematically summarizes the microscale sedimentation mechanisms, influencing factors, transport pathways, and risk control measures for TWPs in aquatic environments, incorporating recent advances in flux estimation. It provides essential insights to guide future research on TWP environmental behavior.