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The atmospheric microplastics deposition contributes to microplastic pollution in urban waters

Water Research 2022 217 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 55 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.

Jing Sun, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Zitong Peng, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Jing Sun, Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Zitong Peng, Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Jing Sun, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Zhuo-Ran Zhu, Jing Sun, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Zitong Peng, Weng Fu, Zitong Peng, Weng Fu, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Xiaohu Dai, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Jing Sun, Weng Fu, Weng Fu, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni

Summary

Researchers investigated how atmospheric deposition contributes to microplastic pollution in urban waters. The study found that microplastic deposition fluxes were higher during wet weather than dry weather and showed moderate to strong correlations with atmospheric conditions, demonstrating that airborne microplastic fallout is a meaningful source of contamination in urban water environments.

Polymers

PA PE PET PP

Study Type Environmental

Identifying and understanding the potential sources delivering microplastics into the urban water environment is imperative for microplastic pollution control. However, how atmospheric deposition contributes to microplastic pollution in the urban water environment is unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the contribution of atmospheric deposition to microplastic pollution in urban waters based on the analysis of the atmospheric deposition characteristics in the urban area. The results showed that microplastic deposition fluxes during wet weather and dry weather varied from 1.1 × 10±0.06×10 to 3.5 × 10±0.3 × 10 particles/m/day and 0.91×10±0.09×10 to 1.6 × 10±0.1 × 10 particles/m/day, respectively. The microplastics deposition flux showed moderate to strong correlations to atmospheric particulate matter concentrations, especially the PM2.5 concentration (R = 0.76-0.93), suggesting the regularly monitored PM2.5 concentration might be served as an indicator for microplastics deposition flux estimation. The deposited microplastics were mainly transparent fragments with an average size of 51-67 μm. Polyethylene and polypropylene were the most abundant plastic polymer, followed by polyethylene terephthalate and polyamide. The comparison of microplastics collected during different weather conditions suggested that rain events could increase microplastics deposition fluxes when air quality conditions are similar. Particularly, rains promoted the deposition of fibrous microplastics as well as smaller microplastics. The estimated daily microplastics deposition in the whole city region suggested more microplastics were deposited in summer and winter. The total quantity of microplastics deposited in the urban environment could reach 1.7-12 times of those discharged from treated wastewater. Among them, 10% would directly deposit to urban waters in the studied city region, while the others may also enter the urban waters through runoff. The results of this study highlighted that the atmospheric microplastics deposition is an important source for microplastics, especially smaller ones, to enter the urban waters, which could not be ignored during microplastics pollution control.

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