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Nanoplastics as competitors of natural colloids in the environment: The case of gadolinium complexes
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Nanoplastics in seawater can adsorb rare earth elements such as gadolinium — a metal increasingly released into the environment from MRI contrast agents — with roughly half of gadolinium adsorbing onto nanoplastics even in complex seawater chemistry. Surprisingly, lower concentrations of nanoplastics adsorbed more gadolinium per particle, suggesting that particle aggregation at higher concentrations reduces effective surface area. This reveals that nanoplastics could act as unexpected vectors for transporting rare earth and other trace metal contamination through aquatic environments.
This study investigates whether nanoplastics are significant contributor of rare earth elements (Gd) transportation under environmental conditions. Important effects of nanoplastic concentration, Gd concentration, complexation with organic ligands, pH, ionic strength and occurrence of natural colloids competitor were studied thanks to an experimental design combining incubation follow by ultrafiltration and ICPMS analyses. In particular, we observed that even in sea water, about half of the gadolinium can be adsorbed on nanoplastics. Surprisingly, the adsorption is more pronounced at low concentration of nanoplastic (10 μg L) probably because it prevents homoaggregation of nanoparticles. These are the first experimental clues that adsorption on nanoplastics is governed by fundamentally different processes than adsorption on microplastics.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.