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Detecting and monitoring the leaching of small (¡ 2 µm) microplastics in soils by fluorescence microscopy
Summary
Researchers developed a fluorescence microscopy method to detect and monitor the leaching of small microplastics (under 2 µm) in soils, comparing it against µ-Raman spectroscopy across matrices of varying complexity and demonstrating its applicability for tracking the smallest microplastic fraction in soil systems.
Research on microplastics (MP) in soils is much complicated due to the lack of dedicated (extraction) methodologies and strong matrix interferences for MP detection, and there is almost no research on the dynamics of the smallest MP in soil (¡ 20 µm). In our research we first compared the possible detection of the smallest MP fraction (1-2 µm) by µ-Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy in matrices of highly varying complexity. Subsequently, we have demonstrated that it is possible to use fluorescent MP to measure the rate of leaching of small MP in soils under field conditions. In a first experiment, samples of pure quartz sand, soils with variable texture (sandy loam, silt, clay) and removal of native soil organic matter (SOM), and a sandy loam soil with native SOM still present were amended with fluorescent polystyrene (PS) microparticles (diameter 1.65±0.04 µm) in different concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 0.001 Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559689/document