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Global Research Trends and Knowledge Map of Atmospheric Microplastics: History, Evolution and Atmospheric Science Perspectives
Summary
This study doesn't test health effects directly — instead, it reviews over a decade of scientific research on tiny plastic particles floating in our air (atmospheric microplastics), mapping how quickly this field has grown, especially since 2020. The big takeaway is that scientists are only just beginning to understand how much plastic pollution we're breathing in every day, and there's still a lot we don't know about where it comes from and what it does to our bodies — meaning more research and answers are still on the way.
Atmospheric microplastics (AMPs), as a globally prevalent environmental pollutant, have attracted increasing attention from the academic community in the past decade. This study aims to systematically explore the historical background, development trajectory, and evolutionary trends of global atmospheric microplastic research through bibliometric analysis. Based on 1385 relevant studies retrieved from the Web of Science core collection, knowledge graph analysis was conducted using the CiteSpace and VOSviewer tools. The results indicate that research on AMPs has gone through three distinct stages: the budding exploration period (2014–2016), the steady growth period (2016–2019), and the explosive expansion period (2020–2025). In the initial stage, people lacked understanding of AMPs, with a low publication volume and research focused on “occurrence and source”. During the steady growth stage, the number of publications increased, and researchers’ research areas focused on source analysis. During the explosive growth stage, the number of publications reached its peak, and research on AMPs gradually developed from the initial description of phenomena and method development to a comprehensive research direction involving multiple regions, media, and methods. It is worth noting that China has the highest research output on AMPs globally and occupies a dominant position in atmospheric microplastics research. Therefore, this study establishes a knowledge framework for global atmospheric microplastics research, identifies current research gaps, and provides comprehensive references for subsequent academic exploration and environmental governance practices.