Tracking the translocation of nanoplastics from soil to plant: Comparison of different analytical techniques

Nanoplastics (NPs) are increasingly prevalent in the environment, posing potential risks to agricultural systems and the food web. Despite this, currently it lacks comprehensive evaluation on NPs detection and quantification techniques, which is critical for quantitatively understanding the fate and transport of NPs. To address this gap, our study systematically assesses and compares advanced analytical tools for tracking different types of NPs (derived from both top-down and bottom-up approaches) from soil to plants. For identifying and quantifying NPs from environmental samples, pyrolysis - gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) and confocal-Raman spectroscopy demonstrate promise. For laboratory study, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) along with metal doped NPs enables good sensitivity for tracking NPs in plant system. Our results demonstrated a substantial NPs internalization, 1.09 × 10 ¹ ¹ NPs per gram in shoots and 1.52 × 10 ¹ ¹ NPs per gram in roots, by wheat seedlings after five days of exposure, leading to a notable 77.26 % reduction in biomass. This study highlights the importance of integrating multiple techniques to overcome the limitations of each individual technique and provides quantitative insight into the detection of NPs within plant systems, contributing to the improvement of methodology for NPs related research in environmental and agricultural fields.