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Chemical Degradation of Microplastics: Current Technologies, Mechanisms, Challenges, and Future Perspectives
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This review looks at new chemical methods for breaking down microplastics instead of just filtering them out of water. The catch: many treatments only break plastics into smaller fragments without fully destroying them, which may not actually reduce health risks. More testing on real, weathered microplastics (not just lab-made ones) is needed before these methods can be trusted for widespread water treatment use.
Plastic pollution and pervasive microplastic contamination across terrestrial- aquatic ecosystems have raised widespread environmental concerns. Nevertheless, conventional water treatment only physically separates microplastics instead of destroying polymer structures, merely transferring pollutants rather than eliminating them completely. Against this backdrop, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs)- based chemical degradation stands out as a promising strategy, for highly reactive radicals can directly cleave polymer backbones. This review first outlines chemical properties and degradation patterns of typical microplastics including PE, PP, PET, PS and PVC. Subsequently, it systematically compares core mechanisms, merits and drawbacks of representative AOP technologies: photocatalysis, Fenton-like oxidation, ozonation, electrochemical oxidation and persulfate-activated hybrid systems. Notably, particle fragmentation should not be confused with genuine mineralization, since surface cracking and weight loss cannot guarantee full conversion of plastic carbon into harmless CO₂ and H₂O. In addition, practical application faces major obstacles such as incomplete mineralization, high energy consumption, difficult catalyst recovery and toxic intermediate risks. More importantly, most laboratory tests use pristine microplastics, whose behaviors differ greatly from environmentally aged counterparts. Accordingly, renewable-energy-driven hybrid systems are highly recommended for future research. Ultimately, standardized evaluation criteria, reusable catalysts and toxicity assessments are essential to translate lab-scale achievements into real-world microplastic remediation.
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Recent Studies on Chemical Degradation of Microplastics: A Review
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This review paper summarizes current methods for breaking down microplastics using chemical treatments (like specialized oxidation processes), which are tiny plastic particles found in our water, soil, and even air. While these methods show promise for speeding up plastic breakdown, the research reveals a concerning gap: many techniques don't fully destroy the plastic and can create toxic byproducts, meaning we can't yet rely on these solutions to fully eliminate microplastic contamination from our environment. This matters because until these treatment challenges are solved, microplastics will keep accumulating in the ecosystems we depend on for food and water.
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This review summarizes recent advances in chemical methods for breaking down microplastics in water, comparing the effectiveness of various techniques including advanced oxidation processes. Developing better ways to destroy microplastics in water is important for public health because current wastewater treatment plants cannot fully remove these persistent particles before water reaches consumers.
Photocatalytic and biological technologies for elimination of microplastics in water: Current status
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This review examines emerging photocatalytic and biological technologies for breaking down microplastics in water, since conventional treatment facilities can capture but not fully destroy these particles. Researchers found that while photocatalysis and microbial degradation show promise, their effectiveness varies widely and the underlying mechanisms are only partly understood. The study highlights the urgent need for more efficient solutions to eliminate rather than simply filter out microplastic pollution from water supplies.
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This review paper examines methods for removing tiny plastic particles, called nanoplastics, from water and wastewater. It finds that techniques like filtration and chemical treatment often just move the particles elsewhere rather than destroying them, while advanced chemical treatments can break them down under certain conditions. The authors say more testing in real water systems is needed to confirm which methods truly remove nanoplastics.
Degradation of microplastic in water by advanced oxidation processes
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This review covers advanced methods for breaking down microplastics in water using powerful chemical reactions and light-activated catalysts that can degrade plastic particles into less harmful substances. Developing effective ways to destroy microplastics in water is critical for human health because conventional water treatment plants do not fully remove these particles from drinking water sources.
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