Papers

20 results
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Article Tier 2

A rapid-screening approach to detect and quantify microplastics based on fluorescent tagging with Nile Red

Researchers developed a rapid fluorescent screening method using Nile Red dye to detect and quantify microplastics in environmental samples, finding it significantly faster than conventional methods while maintaining reasonable accuracy.

2017 Scientific Reports 897 citations
Article Tier 2

Nile Red staining for detecting microplastics in biota: Preliminary evidence

Nile Red fluorescent staining was tested for identifying microplastics in biological tissue samples, finding that it successfully highlighted plastic particles in fish guts and bivalve tissues with minimal interference from digested organic residues, supporting its use as a quick screening tool before confirmatory spectroscopy.

2021 Marine Pollution Bulletin 66 citations
Article Tier 2

Rapid detection of microplastic contamination using Nile red fluorescent tagging

Researchers developed a rapid microplastic detection method using Nile Red (NR) fluorescent staining combined with zinc chloride density-based extraction and filtration for analysis of coastal marine sediment samples. The approach was cross-validated against conventional light microscopy, demonstrating improved speed and sensitivity for identifying microplastics of various sizes in environmental sediment matrices.

2024 International Journal of Biosciences (IJB)
Article Tier 2

Characterization of Nile Red-Stained Microplastics through Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Researchers developed an improved method for characterizing microplastics using Nile Red fluorescent staining combined with fluorescence spectroscopy. They found that different plastic polymers produce distinct fluorescent signatures when stained, enabling more reliable identification of plastic types. The technique offers a faster and more affordable alternative to traditional microplastic detection methods, which could help scale up environmental monitoring efforts.

2024 Preprints.org 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Identification and quantification of microplastics using Nile Red staining

Researchers tested Nile Red staining as a method for identifying and quantifying microplastics in environmental samples, finding it useful for rapid screening but noting limitations in distinguishing plastics from non-plastic particles.

2016 Marine Pollution Bulletin 579 citations
Article Tier 2

Characterization of Nile Red-Stained Microplastics through Fluorescence Spectroscopy

This study tested a method for detecting microplastics using a fluorescent dye called Nile Red, which makes plastic particles glow under certain light. The researchers found that different types of plastic produce distinct glow patterns, which could help scientists identify what kind of plastic they are looking at. Better detection tools like this are important for tracking microplastic contamination in the environment and understanding human exposure.

2024 Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Rapid detection and quantification of Nile Red-stained microplastic particles in sediment samples

Researchers developed a Nile Red staining method combined with automated fluorescence microscopy to rapidly detect and quantify microplastics in deep-sea sediment samples. The method significantly reduced analysis time compared to manual identification while maintaining accuracy, enabling higher-throughput monitoring of microplastic contamination in marine sediments.

2025 PeerJ 3 citations
Article Tier 2

EVALUATION OF MICROWAVE-ASSISTED ACID/OXIDANT DIGESTION METHOD FOR THE DETECTION OF POLYETHYLENE MICROPLASTICS IN Merluccius Gayi FISH BY NILE RED FLUORESCENT STAINING AND IMAGE ANALYSIS

Researchers developed a faster, more reliable method to detect polyethylene microplastics in hake fish tissue using microwave-assisted digestion and a fluorescent dye called Nile Red, achieving over 98% recovery of microplastic particles without the need for a time-consuming freeze-drying step. They also trained an AI model to visually distinguish polyethylene from other plastic types based on the unique bright yellow glow it produces under fluorescent light.

2024 Journal of the Chilean Chemical Society 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic detection and identification by Nile red staining: Towards a semi-automated, cost- and time-effective technique

Researchers developed a semi-automated, cost-effective method for microplastic detection using Nile red fluorescent staining, showing it can significantly reduce the time and expense of identifying microplastics compared to traditional spectroscopic approaches.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 176 citations
Article Tier 2

Analyzing microplastics with Nile Red: Emerging trends, challenges, and prospects

This review evaluates the Nile Red staining technique as an analytical method for identifying and quantifying microplastics in environmental samples. The study concludes that while Nile Red has emerged as a viable low-cost alternative to visual identification for microplastics research, not everything that fluoresces is plastic, so additional spectroscopic analysis is needed to validate results.

2021 Journal of Hazardous Materials 273 citations
Article Tier 2

Exploring Nile Red staining as an analytical tool for surface-oxidized microplastics

Scientists evaluated Nile Red, a fluorescent dye commonly used to detect microplastics, and found it works differently depending on whether microplastics have been weathered by the environment. Surface oxidation from aging in the environment changes how well the dye sticks to plastics, which means current detection methods may be undercounting weathered microplastics in environmental samples.

2025 Environmental Research 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Innovative application of Nile Red (NR)-based dye for direct detection of micro and nanoplastics (MNPs) in diverse aquatic environments

Researchers developed a method using Nile Red fluorescent dye in n-heptane to directly detect micro- and nanoplastics in diverse water types without prior extraction or processing, achieving sensitive detection of polystyrene, PET, and latex microspheres. The approach offers significant time savings compared to conventional detection methods.

2024 Chemosphere 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Highly efficient Nile red staining for the rapid quantification of microplastic number concentrations using flow cytometry

Scientists developed an improved method for staining microplastics with a fluorescent dye (Nile red) that embeds the dye inside the plastic particles rather than just coating the surface, resulting in much brighter and more reliable detection. Combined with high-speed flow cytometry, the technique can rapidly count microplastic particles smaller than 10 µm in environmental water samples with recovery rates above 99%. Faster and more accurate counting methods like this are important for scaling up microplastic monitoring across many water sources.

2025 Analytical Methods 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Nile Red Staining as a Subsidiary Method for Microplastic Quantifica-tion: A Comparison of Three Solvents and Factors Influencing Application Reliability

This study evaluated Nile Red fluorescent staining as a method for quantifying microplastics in environmental samples, comparing it to traditional identification techniques. The approach can help distinguish microplastics from organic particles more quickly and cost-effectively, supporting higher-throughput microplastic analysis in environmental monitoring programs.

2017 SDRP Journal of Earth Sciences & Environmental Studies 38 citations
Article Tier 2

Nile Red lifetime reveals microplastic identity

Researchers developed a fluorescence lifetime imaging approach using the dye Nile Red that can distinguish microplastic particles from biological and mineral debris based on their distinct fluorescence lifetimes, offering faster and more specific microplastic identification than conventional methods.

2020 Environmental Science Processes & Impacts 63 citations
Article Tier 2

Rapid detection of nanoplastics and small microplastics by Nile-Red staining and flow cytometry

Researchers developed a rapid method for detecting nanoplastics and small microplastics by combining Nile-Red fluorescent staining with flow cytometry. The technique can quantify plastic particles in the 0.6 to 15 micrometer range in just 90 seconds, which is hundreds of times faster than conventional spectroscopic methods. The approach showed high detection efficiency for polyethylene, polyvinylchloride, and polystyrene, offering a practical tool for environmental nanoplastic monitoring.

2022 Environmental Chemistry Letters 65 citations
Article Tier 2

The potential of fluorescent dyes—comparative study of Nile red and three derivatives for the detection of microplastics

Researchers compared Nile red and three newly developed fluorescent dye derivatives for staining microplastics, finding that the derivatives achieved greater selectivity for plastic particles and more intense fluorescence than standard Nile red, improving detection sensitivity.

2021 Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry 106 citations
Article Tier 2

Rapid methods for the quantification of ingested nano-and microplastics in marine fish by imaging flow cytometry

Researchers developed a rapid, high-throughput method using imaging flow cytometry to quantify nano- and microplastics ingested by marine fish. The optimized technique uses Nile Red fluorescent staining and morphology-based corrections to accurately count plastic particles, providing a faster and more reliable alternative to conventional detection methods for ecological risk assessments.

2026 Journal of Hazardous Materials
Article Tier 2

Towards a low-cost, rapid microplastic optical detection system using fluorescent staining through Nile Red for in situ ocean deployment

This study presents a proof-of-concept for a portable, low-cost microplastic detection device that uses fluorescent dye (Nile Red) and a simple optical sensor to detect plastic particles in water. The system produced a signal that scaled linearly with microplastic concentration in lab tests. Development of cheap, field-deployable sensors like this could dramatically improve our ability to monitor microplastic pollution in real time across oceans and waterways, where current lab-based methods are too expensive and slow for widespread use.

2023 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Exploring the potential of photoluminescence spectroscopy in combination with Nile Red staining for microplastic detection

Researchers explored photoluminescence spectroscopy combined with Nile Red staining as a cost- and time-efficient detection method for microplastics, evaluating improvements to existing fluorescence microscopy approaches for more reliable global monitoring of microplastic abundance.

2020 Marine Pollution Bulletin 86 citations