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Analysis of Microplastics in Environmental Waters by Pyrolysis-GC/MS
Summary
This chapter reviewed pyrolysis-GC/MS as an analytical method for detecting and quantifying microplastics in environmental water samples including wastewater, rivers, and seawater. Unlike size-limited optical methods, Py-GC/MS can analyze particles of any size and directly identify polymer types, making it a promising high-throughput tool.
Microplastics (MPs) have been detected worldwide in a wide range of environmental compartments (e.g., wastewater, river and lake water, seawater, sediments, and biota), making the accumulation of plastics a growing environmental problem. Therefore, it is mandatory to gather data on their occurrence and environmental fate to better understand the effects of MPs on ecosystems and human health. Over the last years, pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) appeared as a promising analytical method for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of MPs in the environment, especially because it has no particle size limitations.