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Weathering effect triggers the sorption enhancement of microplastics against oxybenzone
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Researchers found that weathering in air, seawater, and freshwater makes PET microplastics absorb significantly more oxybenzone, a common sunscreen chemical, than fresh plastic does. Aging creates surface cracks and new chemical groups that increase the plastic's ability to bind pollutants. The study suggests that as microplastics weather in the environment, they become more effective carriers of harmful chemicals.
Microplastics are a growing concern due to their potential negative environmental and human health impacts. This study investigated the physiochemical changes in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) microplastics upon aging in air, seawater, and freshwater through exposure to Xenon light (artificial aging) and sun (natural aging). We used SEM to examine the surface morphology of natural and aged PET microplastics and found that aged particles exhibited mechanical grinding, irregular wrinkles, cracks, and a small subset of mesopores. FTIR analysis revealed that microplastics were degraded through an oxidation process, resulting in the appearance of carboxyl and hydroxyl groups. BET analysis showed that freshwater-aged microplastics had the highest specific surface area (SBET) value. We also studied the sorption behavior of oxybenzone, a UV filter compound, onto microplastic particles. Our results indicated that the sorption behavior followed the pseudo-second-order model, with hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonding formation as the main mechanisms. The equilibrium adsorption values for aged microplastics increased from 6.62 to 9.10 mg/g for air, seawater, and freshwater, respectively, compared to 6.44 mg/g for virgin microplastics. The sorption isotherm experiments showed that the Langmuir model could represent the sorption mechanism of the virgin materials, while air- and seawater-aged microplastics were more accurately described using the Freundlich isotherm model. The initial concentrations of oxybenzone in the background solutions exhibited an increasing trend with increasing concentrations, and pH values showed different effects on microplastic sorption capacity depending on the age of the microplastics and the solution pH. Our results suggest that microplastics exhibit an increasing trend in enhanced sorption capacity from virgin to aged conditions, with uneven distribution of active groups on each surface area due to uneven crack formation. Further research is needed to explore desorption experiments using aged microplastics from natural resources.
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Aging of microplastics increases their adsorption affinity towards organic contaminants
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Researchers found that microplastics that have been weathered by sunlight and environmental exposure absorb significantly more chemical pollutants than fresh microplastics, with up to a 4.7-fold increase in adsorption. Ultraviolet exposure changes the surface chemistry of the plastics, making them stickier for contaminants. This matters because most microplastics in nature are weathered, meaning they may be carrying more toxic chemicals into the food chain than laboratory studies using new plastics would suggest.
Enhanced sorption of the UV filter 4-methylbenzylidene camphor on aged PET microplastics from both experimental and theoretical perspectives
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The aging process of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) microplastics was studied by examining how weathering changes their surface morphology and ability to sorb the sunscreen chemical 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC). Aged PET showed enhanced sorption of 4-MBC compared to pristine PET, indicating that environmental weathering increases the capacity of microplastics to accumulate organic contaminants.
Effects of Weathering on Microplastic Dispersibility and Pollutant Uptake Capacity
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This study examined how environmental weathering changes the surface properties of microplastics and their ability to absorb co-pollutants, finding that weathered MPs bind more contaminants than pristine particles due to surface oxidation and cracking. The results emphasize that the environmental fate and toxicity of microplastics change dynamically as they age in the environment.
Synergistic Adsorption of Organic Pollutants on Weathered Polyethylene Microplastics
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Researchers studied how environmental weathering changes the ability of polyethylene microplastics to adsorb organic pollutants like triclosan and methylparaben. The study found that weathered and oxidatively degradable polyethylene adsorbed significantly more pollutants than virgin plastic, suggesting that aged microplastics in the environment may pose a greater risk as carriers of toxic chemicals.
Simultaneous sorption behaviors of UV filters on the virgin and aged micro-high-density polyethylene under environmental conditions.
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Researchers studied how UV filter chemicals from sunscreens adsorb onto both virgin and aged high-density polyethylene microplastics. They found that aged, weathered microplastics had greater capacity to accumulate UV filter compounds than fresh plastic due to changes in surface chemistry. This suggests that environmental aging of plastics increases their ability to transport chemical contaminants.
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