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Impact of six digestion methods on the measurement of polystyrene microplastics in organisms using fluorescence intensity
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This study compared six different tissue digestion methods for releasing polystyrene microplastics from biological samples, finding that some digestion protocols degraded the plastic particles and reduced fluorescence signal, leading to underestimates of contamination. Choosing the right digestion method is critical for accurate measurement of microplastic burdens in fish and other organisms.
Microplastic pollution has emerged as a significant global environmental issue, raising considerable concern. To assess the biological impacts of microplastics, precise quantification within organisms is essential. Fluorescence intensity is a common method for measuring microplastics, but biological sample digestion—a crucial pre-treatment step—can potentially degrade the microplastics, affecting fluorescence readings and causing discrepancies between measured and actual values. This study investigates six widely used digestive agents: KOH, naoh, H2O2, HNO3, HNO3: hcl, and HNO3: HClO4. The effects of these digestion methods on microplastic fluorescence intensity and surface morphology were evaluated to determine the most effective protocol. The results indicate that KOH digestion (100 g·L-1, 60℃) has the least impact on fluorescence intensity and preserves the microplastics' surface morphology, whereas the other five methods caused varying degrees of fluorescence reduction and surface damage (such as aggregation, bubbles, scratches, and depressions). Furthermore, the KOH digestion method achieved a recovery rate of ≥96.3%±0.5% when used to extract microplastics from biological samples, demonstrating its suitability for analyzing fluorescent microplastics in such samples.
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