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Direct observation and identification of nanoplastics in ocean water
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Researchers developed a new technique to directly see and identify nanoplastics (plastic particles smaller than a micrometer) in ocean water for the first time. They found nylon, polystyrene, and PET particles in samples from two oceans, appearing as tiny fibers, flakes, and other shapes made from plastics commonly used in everyday products.
Millions of tons of plastics enter the oceans yearly, and they can be fragmented by ultraviolet and mechanical means into nanoplastics. Here, we report the direct observation of nanoplastics in global ocean water leveraging a unique shrinking surface bubble deposition (SSBD) technique. SSBD involves optically heating plasmonic nanoparticles to form a surface bubble and leveraging the Marangoni flow to concentrate suspended nanoplastics onto the surface, allowing direct visualization using electron microscopy. With the plasmonic nanoparticles co-deposited in SSBD, the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy effect is enabled for direct chemical identification of trace amounts of nanoplastics. In the water samples from two oceans, we observed nanoplastics made of nylon, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate-all common in daily consumables. The plastic particles have diverse morphologies, such as nanofibers, nanoflakes, and ball-stick nanostructures. These nanoplastics may profoundly affect marine organisms, and our results can provide critical information for appropriately designing their toxicity studies.
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Direct Observation of Nanoplastics in Ocean Water
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This study directly observed nanoplastic particles in actual ocean water samples for the first time using advanced microscopy techniques, confirming the presence of nanoscale plastic fragments in marine environments and providing a method for studying their distribution and behavior.
Nanoplastic in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
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Researchers detected and characterized nanoplastics in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, providing some of the first direct evidence that nanoplastic-sized particles are present in open ocean surface waters far from coastlines.
Nano-plastics and their analytical characterisation and fate in the marine environment: From source to sea
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Researchers reviewed the sources, environmental fate, organism interactions, and analytical detection methods for nano-sized plastic polymers in the marine environment, concluding that nanoplastics pose the greatest ecological risk among plastic size fractions and that standardized analytical protocols for nanoplastic characterization are urgently needed.
Expanding sample volume for microscopical detection of nanoplastics
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Scientists developed a new method that can detect nanoplastics in much larger water samples than was previously possible, scaling up from tiny droplets to full liters of seawater. The technique combines specialized membrane filters with enhanced Raman spectroscopy to identify individual nanoplastic particles. This advancement addresses a major technical barrier in understanding how widespread nanoplastic contamination really is in ocean environments.
Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic
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Scientists measured nanoplastics (plastic particles smaller than a micrometer) across the entire North Atlantic Ocean for the first time. They found these tiny particles throughout the water column, with estimated amounts in the surface layer alone potentially reaching 27 million tonnes. This mass rivals or exceeds previous estimates for all larger plastics in the entire Atlantic, showing that nanoplastic pollution is far more extensive than previously thought.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.