Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Exploring the potential impacts of microplastics on greenhouse gas emissions in wastewater treatment

This review analyzed how microplastics in wastewater treatment plants affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, focusing on mechanisms by which microplastics alter microbial communities and their metabolic processes. The plastisphere was identified as a key site for altered methane and nitrous oxide production, with implications for climate reporting from the water sector.

2025 Journal of Environmental Management 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Status of Research on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Wastewater Collection Systems

This paper is not directly about microplastics — it reviews greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater collection systems and estimates China's annual emissions, without a focus on plastic pollution.

2023 Water 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Enhancing Biogas Production Amidst Microplastic Contamination in Wastewater Treatment Systems: A Strategic Review

This review examines how microplastic pollution, including tire-derived particles, interferes with wastewater treatment processes and explores strategies to optimize biogas production in systems affected by microplastic contamination.

2024 Energies 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Silent Threat Below: A Comprehensive Analysis of Manhole Gases and Health Effects

This review covers the health hazards of toxic gases (hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide) found in urban manhole environments and their effects on sanitation workers. It is not about microplastics and is a false positive for microplastic relevance.

2023 Sprin Journal of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Overcoming micro/nanoplastics-induced inhibition in anaerobic digestion: Advances in remediation techniques

This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics inhibit anaerobic digestion performance — reducing biogas yield and organic removal — and surveys remediation strategies including physical, chemical, and biological approaches to overcome their disruptive effects in waste treatment systems.

2025 Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in anaerobic digestion: occurrence, impact, and mitigation strategies

This review examines the presence and impact of microplastics within anaerobic digestion systems used to process sewage sludge and organic waste. Researchers found that microplastics enter these systems through diverse waste inputs and may affect biogas production, microbial community composition, and overall process performance. The study highlights the need for further research into how microplastics interact with anaerobic digestion and what mitigation strategies could minimize their interference.

2024 Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering 17 citations
Article Tier 2

Unraveling synergistic cascade inhibition of methane production in anaerobic digestion system by polyethylene microplastics and domestic sewage: Physical adsorption, metabolic disruption, and microbial community decoupling

Researchers systematically explored how the co-presence of polyethylene microplastics and domestic sewage inhibits methane production in anaerobic digestion systems, finding that physical adsorption of microplastics, propionic acid accumulation, and microbial community decoupling identified via multi-omics analysis collectively suppressed cumulative CH4 production by 41.8% compared to controls.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials
Article Tier 2

Revealing the Mechanisms of Polyethylene Microplastics Affecting Anaerobic Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge

Researchers studied how polyethylene microplastics affect the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge, a common wastewater treatment process. They found that higher concentrations of microplastics significantly reduced methane production by disrupting microbial communities and enzyme activities essential for digestion. The study reveals that microplastic contamination in wastewater systems can undermine the efficiency of sludge treatment and biogas generation.

2019 Environmental Science & Technology 351 citations
Meta Analysis Tier 1

Microplastics divert carbon flow in anaerobic digestion: a meta-analysis reveals product-specific effects

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 55 studies and found that microplastics do not simply inhibit anaerobic digestion but redirect carbon flow within it — suppressing methane production while boosting volatile fatty acid accumulation — with the direction and magnitude of effects determined by polymer type, concentration, size, and temperature.

2026 Bioresource Technology
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and their mechanisms in influencing methane oxidation: A physiological and ecological perspective

This review examines the physiological and ecological mechanisms by which microplastics influence methane oxidation processes in the environment, synthesising current understanding of how ubiquitous plastic contamination may disrupt microbial communities responsible for mitigating methane — a greenhouse gas 20-30 times more potent than CO2.

2025 Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
Article Tier 2

Systematic study of microplastics on methane production in anaerobic digestion: Performance and microbial response

Microplastics are increasingly found in wastewater treatment systems, and this study systematically examined how different types, concentrations, and sizes of microplastics affect the anaerobic digestion process used to break down sewage sludge and generate biogas. Polyethylene microplastics were found to inhibit methane production, with finer particles and higher concentrations causing greater disruption to the microbial communities driving digestion. The findings matter because microplastics in sewage sludge can impair the treatment process and also end up spread on agricultural land when sludge is used as fertilizer.

2025 Journal of environmental chemical engineering 1 citations
Article Tier 2

[Effects of Typical Microplastics on Methanogenesis and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Anaerobic Digestion of Sludge].

Researchers explored the impacts of polyamide, polyethylene, and polypropylene microplastics on methanogenesis and antibiotic resistance gene dynamics during anaerobic digestion of waste sludge, examining how microplastic contamination affects both biogas production and resistance gene enrichment.

2025 PubMed
Article Tier 2

Concentration-dependent effects of polystyrene microplastics on methanogenic activity and microbial community shifts in sewer sediment

This study tested how polystyrene microplastics affect methane-producing microbes in sewer sediments and found that low concentrations boosted methane production by over 200%, while higher concentrations had a smaller stimulating effect. The findings matter for wastewater management because microplastics entering sewer systems could alter greenhouse gas emissions and disrupt the microbial processes that treatment plants rely on.

2025 Bioresource Technology 11 citations
Article Tier 2

The impact of microplastics and nanoplastics on biological nitrogen removal processes: Exacerbating the greenhouse effect

This review examines how microplastics and nanoplastics accumulate in wastewater treatment plants and interfere with the biological processes that remove nitrogen from water. The disruption leads to increased emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, making the problem both an environmental health concern and a climate issue. The findings suggest that microplastic contamination in wastewater is undermining treatment effectiveness while simultaneously contributing to global warming.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic accelerate the phosphorus-related metabolism of bacteria to promote the decomposition of methylphosphonate to methane

Researchers found that microplastics accelerate phosphorus-related metabolism in marine bacteria, promoting the decomposition of methylphosphonate to methane in oxygenated water and revealing a previously unknown mechanism linking plastic pollution to greenhouse gas production.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 30 citations
Article Tier 2

The Potential of Ozonation to Reduce Impact of Waste Sludge-Entrapped Microplastics to Biogas Production

Wastewater treatment plants concentrate microplastics from sewage into the resulting sludge, and this study tested whether ozonation could reduce the harm those microplastics cause during anaerobic digestion used to produce biogas. The findings showed that PET and polypropylene microplastics alter methane yields from sludge digestion in concentration-dependent ways, and that ozone pretreatment partially mitigates the inhibition caused by polypropylene — though the interactions are complex and require further optimization before widespread use.

2024 Ozone Science and Engineering 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Behavior in Sludge Pretreatment and Anaerobic Digestion: Impacts, Mechanistic Insights, and Mitigation Strategies

This review examines how microplastics behave during sludge pretreatment and anaerobic digestion, finding that microplastics frequently persist through these processes and can affect methane production and microbial communities when present at elevated concentrations, calling for mitigation strategies in wastewater treatment.

2025 Sustainability 2 citations
Systematic Review Tier 3

Greenhouse gas emissions and control measures for constructed wetland: A systematic review

This systematic review examines greenhouse gas emissions from constructed wetlands used for wastewater treatment, finding that CH4, CO2, and N2O fluxes vary widely by region and wetland configuration, and that emerging contaminants including microplastics influence emissions. The review proposes design and operational strategies to reduce the climate footprint of constructed wetlands while preserving their water treatment benefits.

2025 Journal of Environmental Management 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Quantifying bubble-mediated transport by ebullition from aquatic sediments

This paper is not relevant to microplastics research — it reviews how gas bubbles rising from aquatic sediments (ebullition) can transport solutes and particles, with primary focus on methane emissions and sediment biogeochemistry.

2023 Frontiers in Earth Science 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Fate of microplastics in a centralized biogas plant treating mainly sewage sludge

Researchers tracked the fate of microplastics through a centralized biogas plant treating sewage sludge, examining how anaerobic digestion and subsequent dewatering partition microplastics between solid and liquid digestate fractions. The study informs efforts to develop safer digestate-based recycled fertilizers that minimize microplastic introduction to agricultural soils, where 20-55% of microplastics entering wastewater treatment plants are estimated to end up in sludge.

2025 Journal of Environmental Management
Article Tier 2

Microplastics, antibiotics, and heavy metals in anaerobic digestion systems : a critical review of sources, impacts, and mitigation strategies

This critical review examined how microplastics, antibiotics, and heavy metals—as co-occurring contaminants—affect the performance of anaerobic digestion systems, finding that all three impair microbial processes, reduce biogas yields, and accumulate in digestates that are then applied to agricultural soils.

2025 OPUS Publication Server of the University of Stuttgart (University of Stuttgart)
Article Tier 2

[Advances in the Effects of Microplastics on Soil N2O Emissions and Nitrogen Transformation].

This review synthesizes current research on how microplastics affect soil nitrogen cycling, including N2O emissions, nitrogen transformation processes, functional enzyme activity, and nitrogen-related genes, highlighting inconsistent findings due to variability in microplastic properties, experimental conditions, and spatial-temporal scales.

2024 PubMed
Article Tier 2

A review of mechanisms underlying the impacts of (nano)microplastics on anaerobic digestion

This review summarized mechanisms by which nano- and microplastics affect anaerobic digestion in wastewater treatment, covering inhibition and enhancement pathways, impacts on biogas production and methane yield, and effects on microbial community structure.

2021 Bioresource Technology 130 citations
Article Tier 2

A review of microplastics stress on nitrogen conversion and nitrous oxide emissions from biological wastewater treatment: Efficiency, mechanism and prospects

This review analyzes how microplastics affect nitrogen conversion processes and nitrous oxide emissions during biological wastewater treatment. Researchers found that microplastics can disrupt key nitrogen-cycling steps including nitrification and denitrification, potentially increasing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. The study highlights the dual environmental concern of microplastics interfering with both water treatment efficiency and climate-relevant gas emissions.

2026 The Science of The Total Environment