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The chemical behaviors of microplastics in marine environment: A review

Marine Pollution Bulletin 2019 654 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Xuan Guo, Jianlong Wang

Summary

This review summarized interactions between microplastics and organic pollutants and metals in the marine environment, covering sorption behavior across polymer types, the role of degradation in altering sorption capacity, and global monitoring data on pollutant concentrations on marine plastics. The authors conclude that microplastic type, pollutant properties, and environmental conditions all strongly influence chemical accumulation on plastic surfaces.

Microplastics are widely existed in marine and coastal environments, which aroused global concern in recent years. This review mainly summarized the interactions of organic pollutants and metals with microplastics based on environmental monitoring results and laboratory results reported by literatures. Firstly, the type, properties, and distribution of microplastics in the environment were briefly reviewed. Secondly, the property changes of microplastics after degradation were discussed. Thirdly, the concentrations of pollutants on microplastics in global environments were summarized. Then the effect of the factors (e.g. types and properties of microplastics, types of pollutants, and environmental conditions) on the sorption behaviors of microplastics were discussed in detail. Finally, the influences of microplastics on marine organisms were briefly evaluated.

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