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Molecular Structure Characterization of Micro/Nanoplastics by 193 nm Ultraviolet Photodissociation Mass Spectrometry

Analytical Chemistry 2023 3 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 45 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.

Shiwen Liu, Shiwen Liu, Shiwen Liu, Heng Zhao, Heng Zhao, Zheyi Liu, Heng Zhao, Zheyi Liu, Zheyi Liu, Yongjie Guo, Yaolu Ma, Lingqiang Zhou, Yanxia Qi, Yanxia Qi, Yanxia Qi, Qiancheng Zhao, Fangjun Wang Qiancheng Zhao, Chunlei Xiao, Qiancheng Zhao, Xueming Yang, Fangjun Wang Fangjun Wang Fangjun Wang Fangjun Wang

Summary

This study used 193 nm ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) mass spectrometry to characterize the molecular structures of micro- and nanoplastics, enabling accurate identification of polymer types that cannot be resolved by conventional fragmentation methods. The approach advances the chemical characterization of plastic particles from complex environmental samples.

Polymers

The degradation of macroplastics results in micro/nanoplastics (MNPs) in the natural environment, inducing high health risks worldwide. It remains challenging to characterize the accurate molecular structures of MNPs. Herein, we integrate 193 nm ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) with mass spectrometry to interrogate the molecular structures of poly(ethylene glycol) terephthalate and polyamide (PA) MNPs. The backbones of the MNP polymer can be efficiently dissociated by UVPD, producing rich types of fragment ions. Compared to high-energy collision dissociation (HCD), the structural informative fragment ions and corresponding sequence coverages obtained by UVPD were all improved 2.3 times on average, resulting in almost complete sequence coverage and precise structural interrogation of MNPs. We successfully determine the backbone connectivity differences of MNP analogues PA6, PA66, and PA610 by improving the average sequence coverage from 26.8% by HCD to 89.4% by UVPD. Our results highlight the potential of UVPD in characterizing and discriminating backbone connectivity and chain end structures of different types of MNPs.

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