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A systematic protocol of microplastics analysis from their identification to quantification in water environment: A comprehensive review

Journal of Hazardous Materials 2020 150 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 55 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Jieun Lee, Kyu‐Jung Chae

Summary

This review provides a systematic protocol for identifying and quantifying microplastics in water environments, covering sampling, extraction, and analytical techniques. Researchers evaluate the strengths and limitations of methods including visual sorting, spectroscopic analysis, and thermal techniques for characterizing microplastic pollution. The study emphasizes the urgent need for standardized methodologies to enable meaningful comparisons across different microplastic research studies.

With microplastics (MPs) being detected in aquatic environments, numerous studies revealed that they caused severe environmental issues, including damage to ecosystems and human health. MPs transport persistent organic pollutants by adsorbing them, and in nanoplastics this phenomenon is exacerbated by increased surface area. Despite their environmental risk, systematic protocol for qualitative and quantitative analysis are yet to be established in environmental analytical chemistry. Current analytical technologies on MP identification have technological limits with regard to detecting small sized particles (<1 µm), underestimation of MPs with organic contaminants, and physico-chemically altered particles by weathering and photo degradation. According to the published works, MPs are spread in living organisms through the food web, and are even detected in bottled water. To determine its eco-toxicity and removal by biodegradation, its accuracy, reliability, and reproducibility should be ensured by establishing a systematic protocol of MP identification. This review compares procedures, applicability, and limitations of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and thermo-analytical methods for identifying MPs. Finally, it suggests systematic protocols for MPs analysis.

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