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Development of Rare-earth-Copolymerized Polystyrene Particles for Traceable Microplastic Quantification and Imaging in Environmental and Biological Systems
Summary
Researchers developed a method to permanently embed rare-earth elements into polystyrene microplastic and nanoplastic particles, creating traceable reference materials that stay stable in environmental, gut, and neural conditions — enabling more accurate tracking and quantification of microplastics as they move through ecosystems and living organisms.
We report a covalent rare-earth labeling strategy for constructing traceable polystyrene micro-and nanoplastics that supports quantitative analysis and multi-modal imaging in complex environmental and biological matrices.Polymerizable rare-earth complexes, RE(MAA)#Phen (RE = Eu, Tb; additional lanthanides available), were synthesized using methacrylic acid and 1,10-phenanthroline ligands and subsequently incorporated into polystyrene via copolymerization, enabling stable anchoring of luminescent tracers within the polymer backbone.Using this platform, we built a size-continuous and charge-tunable particle library spanning nano-to micro-scales.Long-term incubation in representative media covering environmental, agricultural, gastrointestinal, and neural exposure scenarios shows low rare-earth leaching and robust optical signals, supporting traceable reference materials for micro-/ nanoplastic quantification and imaging.This work establishes a generalizable platform for constructing traceable micro-and nanoplastic reference materials.