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Impact of different modes of adsorption of natural organic matter on the environmental fate of nanoplastics
Summary
Natural organic matter in water can stabilize nanoplastics by coating their surfaces and preventing them from clumping together and settling out, with different types of organic matter working through different physical mechanisms. Understanding this stabilization effect is important for predicting how long nanoplastics remain suspended in aquatic environments.
Recently, the exposure of nanoplastics (NPs) in the environment has received extensive attention. Research concerning their fate and transport in the aquatic environment is very important and urgent. In this study, the influence of two sources of natural organic matter (NOM) on the behaviour of NPs were investigated in view of the complexity of NOM. Humic acid (HA), Suwannee River humic acid (SRHA) and Upper Mississippi River NOM (MRNOM) were chosen to represent pedogenic NOM, while bovine serum albumin (BSA) was on behalf of aquagenic NOM. The results showed that NOM could reduce the aggregation and sedimentation of NPs, exhibiting excellent stabilization effect. The stability effect was affected by the concentrations and the sources of NOMs. For pedogenic NOMs, the stabilization effect was caused by adsorption modes with different microscopic morphologies through specific functional groups, while it was induced by the mode of steric stabilization in the presence of BSA. Spectroscopic method and micromorphology study further provided a new insight into exploring the possible mechanism of the interaction between NPs and NOMs.
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