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Identification of Microplastics and Nanoplastics and Associated Analytical Challenges
Summary
This book chapter reviews analytical techniques for identifying and characterizing microplastics and nanoplastics after extraction, including scanning electron microscopy, pyrolysis-GC/MS, FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance. It discusses how the presence of fillers, additives, and copolymers complicates accurate identification.
After the extraction of microplastics, identifying suspected plastic particles is an important task. Due to fillers and additives blending at virgin plastic manufacturing or existing as copolymers, the ranges and types of microplastics obtained from a sample vary extensively. Thus, each type of plastic, owing to its specific physicochemical properties, challenges identification accuracy. So, this chapter reviewed the potential of scanning electron microscopy, pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–time-of-flight mass spectrometry as an analytical tool for identification of microplastics and nanoplastics. The analytical challenges associated with each technique for the quantification of microplastics are also discussed in detail.