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Abundance, characteristics and risk assessment of microplastics in aquatic sediments: A comparative study in the Yellow River and Yellow Sea
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Researchers compared microplastic contamination in sediments from the Yellow River and Yellow Sea using laser direct infrared imaging. The study found that microplastic abundance in Yellow Sea sediment was 2.9 times higher than in the Yellow River, with particles smaller than 100 micrometers accounting for over 90% of the total. Risk assessment indicated that all sampled environments exhibited high ecological risk, highlighting the importance of high-resolution detection methods.
The occurrence of microplastics (MPs) in aquatic ecosystems has become an increasingly serious threat to public health. Marine sediments are considered the final recipients of all microplastic pollution from inland rivers, however, whether and how the MPs differ in these two ecosystems remains poorly known due to the divergent MPs detection methods employed in previous studies. Here, we investigated the abundance, size, and types of MPs in sediment samples from the Yellow River and Yellow Sea using laser direct infrared (LDIR), and assessed their ecological risks. The abundance of MPs in the Yellow Sea is 2.9 times higher than that in the Yellow River, with an average abundance of 54813.2 ± 19355.9 and 18780.2 ± 9951.8 particles·kg (dry sediment), respectively. Notably, the predominant polymer types in both sediment environments were silicone, fluororubber, and polypropylene (PP). MPs with sizes < 100 μm accounted for > 90 % of the total MPs number. Risk assessment demonstrated all the sediment environments exhibited high ecological risks. The dominance of small MPs highlighted the importance of using a method with high resolution to delineate the truthful status of MP pollution.
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