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Analysis of composite microplastics in sediment using 3D Raman spectroscopy and imaging method
Summary
Researchers developed an advanced 3D Raman spectroscopy and imaging method to identify composite microplastics in environmental sediment samples, overcoming the limitations of traditional 2D methods that reduce reliability when analyzing multi-layered plastic products.
The threats of microplastic pollution to all habitat have become more and more serious in recent decade, and thus accurate identification of the microplastics from the freshwater to the ocean were necessary. However, the existences of composite plastic products reduced the reliability of traditional 2D Raman spectroscopy and imaging method. Thus, in this study, the advanced 3D Raman spectroscopy and imaging method was developed to determine the composite microplastics in environmental samples, which significantly lower the miss rates (MI) of the plastic identifications (p < 0.05). Moreover, the outstanding advantages of this method include a wide range of applications including the field long-term weathering to microplastic fragments without affecting the accuracy. Then, the established method realized the separate determination of the homogeneous and composite microplastics in the river/mangrove and marine sediment collected from the Beibu Gulf. The abundance of composite fractions in mangrove sediment was one to four orders of magnitude higher than that collected from river and marine sediment (p < 0.05). And, the composite microplastics based on the PE and PP polymer was the most frequently detected fraction in the sediment samples. Results of this work provide an analytical platform for comprehensive analysis of the composite microplastics in field and highlight their important roles in estimating the total microplastic pollution worldwide.
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