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Interplay between microplastics and natural organic matter in association with environmental processes
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This review explores how microplastics interact with natural organic matter—the dissolved and particulate carbon that permeates soils and waterways—and how these interactions alter microplastic transport, surface chemistry, and biological availability. Because natural organic matter coats microplastics and changes their behavior, ignoring this interplay leads to underestimates of how far and how dangerously microplastics spread through ecosystems.
Microplastics (MP) have obtained remarkable attention from the scientific community owing to the potential damage they can cause to the environment. Several research works conducted towards consequences of MP in soil and aquatic systems reveal that there is significant interaction between various MP particles and natural organic matter (NOM). This results in changes in physicochemical properties, transport behaviours, and bioavailability of MP. Conversely, properties of NOM can be affected by the interaction with polymer microparticles. Consequently, MP-NOM interaction is crucial for environmental processes such as C sequestration, nutrient cycling, and microbial activity. Therefore, this critical review assesses the possibility of the existence of 'MP-NOM association', by analysing the currently available research results. It could even be presumed that MP enter into various environmental compartments through the respective organic matter regimes. This would, then, lead to the scenario that knowledge on MP-NOM associations acts as the key to understanding how MP operate within the environment. Therefore, this review also analyses the challenges and limitations while addressing MP-NOM associations. This work brings in the concept of 'MP-NOM Association' and helps researchers to identify knowledge gaps and challenges so that ideas and experiments can be devised to investigate the fundamental aspects of microplastic pollution in soil and water.
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