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Rapid excretion of raw microplastics and longer persistence of fragmented microplastics in the quail digestive system
Summary
Researchers fed polystyrene microplastics to quails and tracked fecal excretion over time, finding that 90% of parent particles were expelled within 10 days but that smaller fragmented microplastics persisted up to 20 days — and that digestion caused significant oxidation and fragmentation of the particles.
Substantial amounts of microplastics are ingested by living organisms, in particular by humans; yet, the fate of microplastics through digestion is poorly known. Here, we administrated 1–2 mm polystyrene microplastics to quails to monitor their dynamics of fecal excretion. We quantified small-sized polystyrene microplastics, lower than 500 µm, by pyrolysis-assisted thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The surface morphology of parent microplastics was also characterized. Results show that 90 wt% of parent particles were excreted within 10 days, mostly in the first 24 h, whereas fragmented microplastics persisted for up to 20-day post-ingestion. Aged polystyrene and sand co-administered particles exhibited greater fragmentation than those in other groups. Parent microplastics were significantly oxidized after digestion.