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Nanoplastics in aquatic environments: The hidden impact of aging on fate and toxicity
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This review highlights that most toxicity studies on nanoplastics use brand-new pristine particles, but real-world nanoplastics are aged by sunlight and chemical exposure, which fundamentally changes their surface properties and toxicity. Aged nanoplastics may be more harmful than pristine ones because they interact differently with biological systems, meaning current safety assessments likely underestimate the true risks.
The increasing release of plastic waste into aquatic ecosystems has led to the widespread occurrence of secondary microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs), raising significant environmental and health concerns. While the toxicological effects of pristine NPs have been well documented, the role of aging—through processes such as ultraviolet (UV) photoaging and chemical oxidation—remains largely understudied. Aging fundamentally alters the physicochemical properties of NPs, potentially affecting their aggregation behaviour, eco-corona formation, and interactions with natural organic matter (NOM) and ions in aquatic environments. These changes may drastically shift the bioavailability and toxicity of NPs, making current assessments based on pristine particles environmentally unrealistic. This review synthesises the existing literature on NP aging, exploring how it affects their fate, transport, and toxicological impact on aquatic organisms. By identifying key knowledge gaps and highlighting the need for studies that account for environmental aging, this paper offers a roadmap for future research in NP environmental risk assessment. Understanding the dynamic transformations of NPs post-aging is crucial for developing more accurate models of their long-term ecological and human health impacts.
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The wheel of time: The environmental dance of aged micro- and nanoplastics and their biological resonance
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This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics change as they age in the environment through exposure to sunlight, water, and biological activity. Aged plastics behave differently than fresh ones: they accumulate faster in ecosystems, are more easily taken up by organisms, and can release trapped chemicals as they break down. The findings suggest that the real-world health and environmental risks of microplastics may be greater than lab studies using new, unweathered plastics indicate.
Weathering pathways and protocols for environmentally relevant microplastics and nanoplastics: What are we missing?
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This review highlights a major gap in microplastics research: most lab studies use brand-new, pristine plastic particles, but microplastics in the real world have been weathered by sunlight, water, and biological activity. Weathered microplastics behave differently, releasing more chemicals and interacting with organisms in ways that fresh plastics do not. Only about 10% of published studies have used aged microplastics, meaning current risk assessments may not reflect the true dangers of environmental microplastic exposure.
Environmental Implications of Physicochemical Differences Between Environmental Nanoplastics and Their Commercial Forms
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Researchers conceptually analyzed physicochemical differences between environmentally aged nanoplastics and their commercial engineered forms, examining how natural aging alters surface properties, environmental stability, and behavior in aquatic media for five types of environmentally relevant nanoplastic models.
Insights into the Photoaging Behavior of Microplastics: Environmental Fate and Ecological Risk
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This review examines how sunlight ages microplastics in the environment, breaking them into smaller pieces and changing their surface chemistry in ways that make them more toxic and more likely to carry other pollutants. Sun-aged microplastics release dissolved organic matter that can harm aquatic life, and their roughened surfaces attract more bacteria and chemical contaminants. Since most microplastics in nature have been exposed to sunlight, their real-world health risks may be higher than studies using fresh lab plastics suggest.
Mechanistic insights into non-negligible toxicity evolution of microplastics under different aging processes
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This review examines how different environmental aging processes, such as UV exposure, mechanical wear, and chemical weathering, change the physical and chemical properties of microplastics and alter their toxicity. Researchers found that aged microplastics and the chemicals they leach tend to be more harmful to organisms than fresh particles, causing growth inhibition and genetic damage. The findings suggest that the environmental risks of microplastics may increase significantly as they degrade over time.
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