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Repulsive Interactions of Eco-corona-Covered Microplastic Particles Quantitatively Follow Modeling of Polymer Brushes
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Researchers demonstrated that the eco-corona layer formed by natural organic matter on microplastic surfaces creates long-range repulsive interactions between particles, following the polymer brush model and fundamentally altering how microplastics behave in the environment.
The environmental fate and toxicity of microplastic particles are dominated by their surface properties. In the environment, an adsorbed layer of biomolecules and natural organic matter forms the so-called eco-corona. A quantitative description of how this eco-corona changes the particles' colloidal interactions is still missing. Here, we demonstrate with colloidal probe-atomic force microscopy that eco-corona formation on microplastic particles introduces a compressible film on the surface, which changes the mechanical behavior. We measure single particle-particle interactions and find a pronounced increase of long-range repulsive interactions upon eco-corona formation. These force-separation characteristics follow the Alexander-de Gennes (AdG) polymer brush model under certain conditions. We further compare the obtained fitting parameters to known systems like polyelectrolyte multilayers and propose these as model systems for the eco-corona. Our results show that concepts of fundamental polymer physics, like the AdG model, also help in understanding more complex systems like biomolecules adsorbed to surfaces, i.e., the eco-corona.
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Repulsive interactions of eco-corona covered microplastic particles quantitatively follow modelling of polymer brushes
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This review examines how the 'eco-corona' — a layer of environmental biomolecules adsorbing onto plastic particle surfaces — alters the toxicity, transport, and interaction with co-pollutants of micro- and nanoplastics, emphasizing that this biological coating fundamentally changes how plastics behave in living organisms.
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