Analytical Methods for Particulate Plastics in Soil and Water

This chapter provides an attempt to centralize and unify information on a plethora of techniques used for the analysis of particulate plastics in soil and water. Plastic production required to meet unabating demands was reported to increase from 0.5 million tons per year in 1960 to as high as 300 million tons in 2013. Microplastics can directly enter the environment from large plastic items that are continuously fragmenting until they attain micrometric dimensions. Microplastics tend to sediment after reaching soil and aquatic systems via effluents from wastewater treatment plants. Pressurized fluid extraction is another method used for extraction of microplastics (MP), which involves a sample preparation technique that employs elevated temperatures and pressure with liquid solvents to achieve rapid and efficient extraction of the analytes from the solid matrix. A new and improved, cost-effective oil extraction protocol was demonstrated as an alternative to density-based approaches by taking advantage of the oleophilic properties of MPs.