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Co-occurrence of co-contaminants: Cyanotoxins and microplastics, in soil system and their health impacts on plant – A comprehensive review

The Science of The Total Environment 2021 34 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 50 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Sukhendu Maity, Rajkumar Guchhait, Ankit Chatterjee, Kousik Pramanick

Summary

This review examined the co-occurrence of cyanotoxins and micro/nanoplastics in soil systems, finding that both contaminants are globally distributed and that their interactions — including plastic acting as a vector for cyanotoxin transport — pose compound risks to plant health and food safety.

Cyanotoxins (CTX) and micro/nanoplastics (M/NP) are ubiquitously distributed in every environmental compartment. But the distribution, abundance and associated ecological risks of CTX are still poorly understood in soil system. On the other hand, M/NP could serve as vectors for persistent organic/inorganic pollutants in the natural environment through the sorption of pollutants onto them. Thus, co-occurrence of CTX and M/NP in soils suggests the sorption of CTX onto M/NP. So, major aim of this review is to understand the relevance of CTX and M/NP in soils as co-contaminants, possible interactions between them and ecological risks of CTX in terms of phytotoxicity. In this study, we comprehensively discuss different sources and fate of CTX and the sorption of CTX onto M/NP in soil system, considering the partition coefficient of different phases of soil and mass balance. Phytotoxicity of CTX, CTX mixture and co-contaminants has also been discussed with insights on the mechanism of action. This study indicates the need for the evaluation of sorption between co-contaminants, especially CTX and M/NP, and their phytotoxicity assessment using environmentally relevant concentrations.

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