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Unveiling the hidden impact: How biodegradable microplastics influence CO2 and CH4 emissions and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) profiles in soil ecosystems
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Researchers investigated how biodegradable microplastics from PBAT, PBS, and PLA affect greenhouse gas emissions and volatile organic compounds in paddy and upland soils. The study found that despite being biodegradable, these microplastics do not always promote soil emissions as expected, with PBAT and PLA actually reducing certain greenhouse gas fluxes under some conditions.
Biodegradable plastics promise eco-friendliness, yet their transformation into microplastics (bio-MPs) raises environmental alarms. However, how those bio-MPs affect the greenhouse gases (GHGs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in soil ecosystems remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigated the effects of diverse bio-MPs (PBAT, PBS, and PLA) on GHGs and VOCs emission in typical paddy or upland soils. We monitored the carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH) fluxes in-situ using the self-developed portable optical gas sensor and analyzed VOC profiles using a proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS). Our study has revealed that, despite their biodegradable nature, bio-MPs do not always promote soil GHG emissions as previously thought. Specifically, PBAT and PLA significantly increased CO and CH emissions up to 1.9-7.5 and 115.9-178.5 fold, respectively, compared to the control group. While PBS exhibited the opposite trend, causing a decrease of up to 39.9% for CO and up to 39.9% for CH. In addition, different types of bio-MPs triggered distinct soil VOC emission patterns. According to the Mann-Whitney U-test and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), a recognizable VOC pattern associated with different bio-MPs was revealed. This study claims the necessity of considering polymer-specific responses when assessing the environmental impact of Bio-MPs, and providing insights into their implications for climate change.
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The impact of biodegradable plastics on methane and carbon dioxide emissions in soil ecosystems: a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy approach
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