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Photoinduced Force Microscopy as an Efficient Method Towards the Detection of Nanoplastics
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Researchers demonstrated photoinduced force microscopy as an effective method for detecting and chemically characterizing individual nanoplastic particles, overcoming limitations of conventional techniques that lack either sufficient spatial resolution or spectroscopic capability at the nanoscale.
Abstract The degradation of plastic waste in aquatic environments, leading to plastic particles at the micro‐ and nanoscale is of growing concern. However, conventional analytical techniques either lack sufficient spatial resolution or the necessary spectroscopic means to investigate individual plastic nanoparticles. Both are however necessary to understand how macro‐ and micro‐sized plastic particles break down into nanometer‐sized particles. Here we show that a hybrid analytical technique, combining the spatial resolution of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with the chemical information from infrared (IR) spectroscopy, meets these requirements. We studied nanometer‐sized particles of polystyrene (PS), a plastic that is extensively used worldwide. We demonstrate that we can detect and quantify these so‐called nanoplastics down to 20 nm in size and discuss their physicochemical properties. We show that in saline aqueous environments, in the absence of light, oxidative degradation and chain scission are the main mechanisms to form and degrade PS micro‐ and nanoplastics.
More Papers Like This
Photoinduced Force Microscopy as an Efficient Method Towards the Detection of Nanoplastics
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers used photoinduced force microscopy — a technique that overcomes the diffraction limit of conventional infrared spectroscopy — to detect and chemically characterize nanoplastic particles. The method revealed surface oxidation and chemical changes on polystyrene nanoplastics in salt water, demonstrating it can identify degraded nanoplastics that are too small for conventional IR detection.
Single-nanoplastic detection based on plasmon-coupled scattering microscopy
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Researchers developed plasmon-coupled scattering microscopy (PCSM) as a new method for detecting and characterising individual nanoplastic particles down to single-particle sensitivity. The technique offers higher resolution and lower cost than traditional approaches and was validated against known nanoplastic standards.
Single particle-resolution fluorescence microscopy of nanoplastics
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Researchers developed a fluorescence microscopy technique capable of imaging and identifying individual nanoplastic particles. The method enables single-particle resolution detection of nanoplastics, which is a key step toward better quantifying these otherwise invisible particles in environmental samples.
Spectro‐Microscopic Techniques for Studying Nanoplastics in the Environment and in Organisms
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This review examines spectro-microscopic techniques for detecting and characterizing nanoplastics (under 1 um) in environmental and biological matrices, arguing that effective analysis requires combining particle imaging with chemical characterization of the same particles, and highlighting methods capable of simultaneous morphological and chemical identification.
Overcoming resolution limitations: Spectroscopy of sub-30 nm nanoplastics
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Researchers developed a multi-technique approach combining standard micro-Raman spectroscopy with atomic force microscopy to characterize nanoplastics as small as 25 nm, achieving a mass detection limit of 8.6 attograms and demonstrating the capability to obtain single-particle spectra from sub-30 nm polystyrene nanoparticles.
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