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Photo-Aging of Biodegradable Polylactic Acid Microplastics
Summary
Researchers investigated the photo-aging of polylactic acid (PLA) microplastics, finding that UV exposure caused fragmentation that increased total particle numbers while decreasing average particle size. The study provides quantitative data on how biodegradable PLA plastics generate secondary microplastics through photoaging, a previously poorly characterized degradation pathway for this widely used industrial bioplastic.
Microplastic (MPs) pollution has became a serious issue. Photoaging is one of the main ways to produce MPs. Polylactic acid (PLA) is the most commonly used biodegradable plastic in industry, however, the current reports on the quantitative data of biodegradable PLA MPs produced by photoaging were little known. Therefore, this study selected PLA MPs as representative MPs to explore photoaging of biodegradable MPs. The results showed that PLA MPs were broken by photoaging, resulting in an increase in the total particle numbers and a decrease in average particle size. The numbers of particle in PLA MPs increased from 4.39×10 6 particles/L to 6.74×10 6 particles/L, and the average particle size decreased from 22 μm to 17 μm. C=O and C-O on PLA MPs surface were broken, which further confirmed that PLA MPs were degraded and broken after photoaging. This work is helpful to better understand the impact of light on the aging of biodegradable MPs and to assess the environmental risk of biodegradable MPs.