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Oil extraction following digestion to separate microplastics from mussels
Summary
This study compared several chemical digestion and extraction methods for isolating microplastics from mussel tissue, finding that hydrogen peroxide digestion followed by oil-based extraction achieved over 95% recovery across multiple plastic types. Optimized extraction methods are essential for accurately detecting microplastic contamination in shellfish that humans consume.
Mussels are often used as biological indicators for monitoring marine microplastic pollution. The crucial procedure during monitoring is the separation of microplastics from mussel samples. We investigated the separation efficiencies of six combinations of two digestion solutions (10% KOH and 30% HO) and three extraction solutions (NaCl, oil in HO, and oil in NaCl) for mussels with low- and high-density microplastics. After KOH digestion, no polyethylene terephthalate (PET) could be extracted using the three extraction solutions, which might be due to the degradation of PET. After HO digestion, the total extraction recovery rates of polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, and PET for oil in HO and oil in NaCl solution ranged from 95.6% ± 5.09%-100%, which were higher than those of the saturated NaCl solution (51.1% ± 17.1%-67.8% ± 13.9%). The first extraction recovery rates of oil in NaCl solution for PP, PET, and PVC were higher than those of oil in HO. In this study, extraction by oil in NaCl solution after 30% HO digestion was suggested to separate microplastics from mussels. This method is conducive to promoting the standardization of microplastic monitoring in mussels and might be suitable for large-scale monitoring of marine microplastic pollution.