Characterization Techniques for Quantifying Environmental Microplastics

The use of plastics in our diaspora and its improper disposal often made its way to landfill sites and natural water bodies. The size of microplastics can vary from as low as few nm to 100 μm. Microplastics are also found in different shapes, such as fiber, spherical, or flaky forms, due to physiochemical impacts from the local environment. Due to such varied sizes and shapes, it is difficult to characterize microplastics quantitatively and qualitatively. Also, identifying microplastics in different environments poses different challenges and thus requires specific approaches. The identification and characterization often begin with separation of microplastics and their identification using different analytical and characterization tools. In this chapter, we will be discussing the different approaches to characterizing microplastics present in various environments. We will also discuss the mechanism of analyzing microplastics using different methods and highlight the current challenges and limitations of different methodologies in characterizing microplastics.