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Toward Understanding the Transport of Nanoplastics in Subsurface Pores
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Researchers used quartz crystal microbalance experiments to measure how nanoplastics with different surface charges adsorb onto mineral surfaces in soils and groundwater, finding that surface charge compatibility between particles and mineral oxides strongly governs transport behavior. Ionic strength and humic acid also significantly modulated nanoplastic adsorption, providing key parameters for modeling their subsurface fate.
Nanoplastic pollution is not widely recognized as microplastic pollution because nanoparticulate plastics are difficult to collect and analyze. Recent nanoplastic toxicity studies have warranted the need for understanding the transport and fate of nanoplastics in soils and groundwater. Minerals likely determine the transport of nanoplastics (NPs) in the subsurface environment mainly through adsorption of NPs onto the pore surfaces. In the current presentation, we report the kinetics results of NPs adsorption onto SiO 2 and Al 2 O 3 surfaces obtained by using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). Carboxylated polystyrene (CPS) NPs and amine-functionalized polystyrene (APS) NPs with the particle size of ~100 nm were flown through onto SiO 2 - or Al 2 O 3 -coated QCM sensor surface in the range of 0.1 to 100 mM NaCl solution at pH 7. Zeta potential measurement indicated that CPS-NPs and SiO 2 have negative surface charges, but APS-NPs and Al 2 O 3 have positive surface charges. And thus no adsorption occurred for CPS-NPs on SiO 2 surface and for APS-NPs on Al 2 O 3 surface; however, significant adsorption occurred in 100 mM NaCl solution because of the enhanced screening effect of electrolytes on repulsion between NPs and oxide surface. For NPs adsorption to oxide surface with opposite zeta potentials (i.e., CPS-NPs on Al 2 O 3 surface or APS-NPs on SiO 2 surface), substantial amounts of NPs adsorbed even in 0.1 mM NaCl solution. Electrolytes reduce attraction between the NPs and oxide surface, but we found enhanced adsorption of NPs with increasing ionic strengths while the initial adsorption rates decreased with increasing ionic strength. We also present the effect of humic acid on the adsorption. Our results suggest that the transport of NPs in the subsurface pores is strongly influenced by mineral surface types and fluid chemistry. The adsorption kinetics data obtained in the current QCM study may be used as key parameters required for a reliable transport modelling of NPs in soils and groundwater.
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