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A fluorescence-based protocol for quantifying microplastics in soil: Protocol optimization and field investigation
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Scientists developed a more reliable way to measure tiny plastic bits (microplastics) hiding in soil, using a special dye and safer chemicals to separate plastic from dirt without over- or under-counting. When they tested farmland, a landfill, and a park, farmland actually had the most microplastic contamination, a concerning finding since this is where our food is grown, meaning these plastics could potentially make their way into crops and eventually our diets. Better detection methods like this one are a key step toward understanding how much plastic pollution is in the soil that grows our food and assessing what risks it might pose to human health.
The increasing accumulation of microplastics (MPs) in terrestrial environments has intensified the need for reliable methods to detect and quantify MPs in complex soil matrices. This study aimed to establish and optimize a protocol for quantifying MPs in soil. Important steps include soil organic matter (SOM) digestion, MPs extraction, Nile red staining, fluorescence microscopy detection, and MPs counting after image processing, in which the efficiencies of SOM digestion and MPs extraction play the crucial roles and were systematically optimized. Digestion reagents including HO, Fenton's reagent, and HNO were evaluated for their abilities to remove SOM that can induce background fluorescence interfering with MPs quantification. Among the tested reagents, HNO achieved the highest background fluorescence removal efficiency (89% in loam and 82% in clay) without causing significant damage to polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) MPs. CaCl (1.4 g/cm) and ZnCl (1.6 g/cm) showed similar efficiencies for MPs extraction but CaCl, which yielded recoveries of 78-80% for PP and 61-70% for PVC in tested soils, was selected over ZnCl due to its lower environmental toxicity. The established protocol was applied for soil samples collected from three sites designated for different land uses. The highest MPs concentration was found in samples collected from a farmland (1.04 × 10 particles/kg), followed by a landfill site (7.10 × 10 particles/kg) and a park (4.00 × 10 particles/kg), with MPs < 100 μm being the dominant size in all samples. Overall, the established protocol shows potential for application in assessing MPs contamination in terrestrial environments.
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Researchers developed a low-cost, accessible method for extracting and identifying microplastics from farmland soils using density separation, fluorescent staining, and infrared spectroscopy. The protocol achieved recovery rates between 82% and 101% across different soil types and particle sizes. This standardized approach could help scientists worldwide compare results more reliably and give policymakers better data on agricultural microplastic contamination.
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