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Analysis of microplastics in commercial vegetable edible oils from Italy and Spain
Summary
Researchers tested commercial vegetable oils from Italy and Spain for microplastic contamination and found an average of 1,140 microplastic particles per liter across olive oil, sunflower oil, and seed oil. Most particles were tiny fragments under 100 micrometers, made primarily of polyethylene and polypropylene. This study is one of the first to document microplastics in cooking oils, revealing another dietary pathway through which people regularly consume microplastics.
In this work, assessment of microplastics (MPs) in commercial vegetable edible oils from Italy and Spain, including extra-virgin olive oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, and mixed seed oil, has been conducted for the first time. The method was based on sample dilution with ethanol:n-hexane (1:3, v/v), homogenization, vacuum filtration on macroporous silicon filters with 5 μm pore diameter to collect MPs, and automatic µ-FTIR spectroscopy for MPs detection and characterization. In the analysis of oil samples, a mean MPs abundance of 1140 ± 350 MPs/L was found. Observed MPs were characterized, being most of them fragments (81.2 %), with particle sizes < 100 µm (77.5 %), and mainly composed of polyethylene (50.3 %) and polypropylene (28.7 %), among others. Statistical analysis revealed that there were not significant differences (p-value > 0.05) in the abundance of MPs between oil samples or types.
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