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A critical review of the overlooked challenge of determining micro-bioplastics in soil
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This review addresses the overlooked challenge of detecting and measuring micro-bioplastics, which are microplastic fragments derived from biodegradable plastics like polylactic acid and polyhydroxybutyrate. Researchers found that because biodegradable plastics rarely encounter the specific conditions needed for complete decomposition in natural environments, they may paradoxically generate microplastics even faster than conventional plastics. The study concludes that new analytical methods, particularly thermoanalytical approaches, are urgently needed to assess the environmental fate and toxicity of these increasingly common materials.
Currently, non-biodegradable oil-based plastics are gradually being replaced by bio-based biodegradable plastics to prevent the formation of microplastics. For biodegradable materials to decompose completely, however, they require specific conditions that are rarely met in ecosystems. Paradoxically, this may lead to the fast production of microplastics from biodegradable materials, i.e. micro-bioplastics. Until recently, the scientific focus has been solely on the estimation of conventional microplastics. As a result, there is a lack of analytical methods for determining the amount of micro-bioplastics in soil. In this review, we address this problem by summarising sample pre-treatments and analytical techniques suitable for the determination of conventional microplastics, which serve as inspiration for the determination of micro-bioplastics from polyhydroxybutyrates, polylactic acid and polybutylene adipate terephthalate in soil. The analytical techniques include both pyrolysis-based techniques, i.e. thermoanalytical and non-thermoanalytical approaches including sample pre-separation and respective detection limits. We conclude that due to the incomplete knowledge of the production rate of micro-bioplastics, fate, sorption properties and toxicity, it is necessary to develop and validate a rapid and suitable method for their determination. Indeed, the use of thermoanalytical approaches seems to be the most promising strategy. Furthermore, we suggest how the development and analysis of micro-bioplastics should be addressed in future research.
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