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Natural organic matter under human‐influenced environments: Implications for future environmental quality research
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This review highlighted that anthropogenic materials including microplastics and nanomaterials have become integrated into soil and dissolved organic matter pools, arguing that environmental scientists need new frameworks to distinguish these altered organic matter pools from natural organic matter.
Considerable recent research has confirmed that anthropogenic materials including microplastics and nanomaterials have been integrated into soil and dissolved organic matter in the environment. These pools of organic matter could be geochemically processed through different pathways and have different chemical and physical characteristics than the pools of natural organic matter (NOM). However, environmental scientists and engineers currently refer to any organic matter collected in soil, water, and sediments as NOM. Since "real" NOM pools are rapidly dissipated due to losses in natural landscapes, the shift from NOM to human influenced-organic matter (Hi-OM) pools could have huge ecological impacts on the environment. Future environmental quality research should highlight the differences between Hi-OM from NOM.
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Interplay between microplastics and natural organic matter in association with environmental processes
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This review explores how microplastics interact with natural organic matter—the dissolved and particulate carbon that permeates soils and waterways—and how these interactions alter microplastic transport, surface chemistry, and biological availability. Because natural organic matter coats microplastics and changes their behavior, ignoring this interplay leads to underestimates of how far and how dangerously microplastics spread through ecosystems.
Fate and transport of nanoplastics in complex natural aquifer media: Effect of particle size and surface functionalization
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Researchers used batch and column experiments in a natural sandy aquifer to show that nanoplastic transport is governed primarily by organic matter coatings rather than particle size or surface chemistry alone, with suspended organic matter increasing mobility while dissolved organic matter reduces it — findings that improve predictions of nanoplastic contamination in agricultural groundwater systems.
Interaction of Dissolved Organic Matter with Particulate Plastics
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This book chapter examines how dissolved organic matter interacts with plastic particles in aquatic and terrestrial environments. The author discusses how organic coatings on microplastics affect their surface properties, transport behavior, and interactions with microorganisms.
Evaluating the potential of microplastics and natural organic matter for sorption of hydrophobic organic contaminants based on selected properties
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This review compared how microplastics and natural organic particles in the environment sorb hydrophobic chemical pollutants, finding that particle properties such as size, surface area, and age all influence their capacity to act as contaminant carriers. The authors conclude that microplastics are just one of many particulate types competing to carry pollutants in aquatic systems.
Chemodiversity of soil dissolved organic matter affected by contrasting microplastics from different types of polymers
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A 310-day soil incubation experiment found that polyethylene, polystyrene, and PVC microplastics reduced aromatic and hydrophobic dissolved organic matter (DOM) components by over 20%, decreased DOM humification levels, and shifted microbial communities in ways that altered nitrogen availability. These changes in soil DOM chemistry and microbial structure have downstream implications for soil fertility, greenhouse gas emissions, and the bioavailability of co-contaminants like heavy metals and antibiotics.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.