Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Environmental fate, toxicity and risk management strategies of nanoplastics in the environment: Current status and future perspectives

This review provides a comprehensive look at nanoplastics -- tiny plastic particles smaller than one micrometer -- covering their environmental fate, toxic effects on organisms, and potential risks to ecosystems. Researchers found that nanoplastics can carry other pollutants like heavy metals and even serve as habitats for bacteria and viruses. The study calls for more research across all environmental compartments, including soil, air, and groundwater, to fully understand the scope of nanoplastic contamination.

2020 Journal of Hazardous Materials 594 citations
Article Tier 2

A critical review on nanoplastics and its future perspectives in the marine environment

This review provides a comprehensive look at nanoplastics, plastic particles smaller than one micrometer, and their fate in marine environments. Researchers found that nanoplastics can originate from the breakdown of larger plastic debris and may carry harmful chemical additives and absorbed pollutants on their surfaces. The evidence indicates that due to their extremely small size, nanoplastics can cross biological barriers and accumulate in marine organisms, raising concerns about food chain contamination.

2023 Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 16 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoscale plastic pollution: sources, identification and potential mitigation

This review examines the sources, environmental fate, and potential mitigation strategies for nanoscale plastic pollution, tracing the accumulation of plastic particles from millimetre to nanometre scales over decades. It highlights key knowledge gaps and emerging approaches for reducing nanoplastic contamination in ecosystems.

2025 Nanotechnology
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics: Emerging Threat in Global Plastic Pollution

This review examines nanoplastics as an emerging global threat within the broader plastic pollution crisis, discussing their sources, environmental distribution, and potential ecological and human health risks as a distinct concern from larger microplastic particles.

2024 Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences
Article Tier 2

Characterization, occurrence, environmental behaviors, and risks of nanoplastics in the aquatic environment: Current status and future perspectives

This review characterized the occurrence, environmental behavior, and toxicity of nanoplastics in aquatic systems, noting that their small size gives them unique properties — including higher surface reactivity and greater bioavailability — that make them potentially more hazardous than larger microplastics, while also harder to detect.

2021 Fundamental Research 34 citations
Article Tier 2

Nano-plastics and their analytical characterisation and fate in the marine environment: From source to sea

Researchers reviewed the sources, environmental fate, organism interactions, and analytical detection methods for nano-sized plastic polymers in the marine environment, concluding that nanoplastics pose the greatest ecological risk among plastic size fractions and that standardized analytical protocols for nanoplastic characterization are urgently needed.

2020 The Science of The Total Environment 142 citations
Article Tier 2

Critical gaps in nanoplastics research and their connection to risk assessment

This paper identifies critical knowledge gaps in nanoplastics research and explains why they matter for assessing health and environmental risks. Nanoplastics are harder to detect and measure than larger microplastics, meaning current pollution estimates likely undercount total plastic contamination. The authors call for better detection methods and standardized research approaches to understand the true scope of nanoplastic exposure.

2023 Frontiers in Toxicology 56 citations
Review Tier 2

Nanoplastics in the Aquatic Environment. Critical Review

This critical review synthesized the emerging science on nanoplastics in aquatic environments, covering detection challenges, sources, behavior, and toxicological evidence, and identifying major gaps in knowledge about nanoplastic-specific risks.

2015 608 citations
Article Tier 2

New insights in to the environmental behavior and ecological toxicity of microplastics

This review provides new insights into how microplastics behave in the environment and their toxic effects on living organisms. Microplastics can absorb and carry other pollutants, making them more dangerous than the plastic alone, and their effects vary based on size, shape, and chemical composition. The review highlights that smaller particles, especially nanoplastics, pose the greatest risk because they can cross biological barriers and enter cells.

2023 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 80 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in the Environment

This chapter reviews the emerging concern about nanoplastics — plastic particles smaller than 1 micrometer — which are even harder to detect and may have more pervasive biological effects than larger microplastics. Current analytical challenges make nanoplastics difficult to quantify in the environment, leaving significant knowledge gaps.

2018 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in water

This paper examines the presence and behavior of nanoplastics, extremely small plastic particles, in water environments. Understanding how these particles move through and persist in water is important for assessing potential risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health.

2024 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoparticles in the Environment and Nanotoxicology

This review examines the environmental fate and toxicological risks of nanomaterials, including engineered nanoparticles and microplastics/nanoplastics, as these materials are increasingly released into ecosystems. The paper surveys current understanding of nanotoxicology and highlights the potential risks that nanoparticle contamination poses to both ecological and human health.

2023 Nanomaterials 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Environmental Impacts of Microplastics and Nanoplastics: A Current Overview

This review examined the environmental impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics across ecosystems, highlighting that these tiny particles behave differently from larger plastic debris and can absorb and transport toxic chemicals. Researchers found evidence that these particles transfer through food chains from lower organisms to higher animals, including humans. The study also explored natural biodegradation processes and current efforts to reduce plastic pollution in the environment.

2021 Frontiers in Microbiology 230 citations
Article Tier 2

Micro- and Nano-Plastics Contaminants in the Environment: Sources, Fate, Toxicity, Detection, Remediation, and Sustainable Perspectives

This review provides a broad overview of micro- and nanoplastic pollution, covering where these particles come from, how they spread through the environment, and the damage they cause to living things including humans. The authors also compare different methods for removing microplastics from the environment, including physical, chemical, and biological approaches. The paper calls for more research and global cooperation to develop better tools for measuring the health risks of plastic pollution.

2023 Water 31 citations
Article Tier 2

Environmental Toxicity of Emerging Micro and Nanoplastics

This review examines the environmental toxicity of emerging micro- and nanoplastics, covering their sources, degradation pathways, ecological impacts on organisms, and the need for standardized risk assessment frameworks.

2022 24 citations
Article Tier 2

Micro/nano-plastics occurrence, identification, risk analysis and mitigation: challenges and perspectives

This review provides a comprehensive overview of micro- and nanoplastic pollution, covering their sources, occurrence in different environments, identification methods, and potential risks to ecosystems and human health. Researchers examined current analytical techniques and found significant gaps in the ability to detect and quantify the smallest plastic particles. The study outlines mitigation strategies including improved waste management, advanced filtration, and biodegradable alternatives.

2022 Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology 233 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics: A Complex, Polluting Terra Incognita

This study discusses nanoplastics as a complex and poorly understood class of environmental pollutants, highlighting the significant knowledge gaps in understanding their sources, fate, and ecological impacts.

2021 Environmental Science & Technology 101 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in aquatic environments: Origin, separation and characterization: Review

This review covers the origins, separation methods, and characterization of nanoplastics in aquatic environments. Nanoplastics (1–100 nm) are particularly concerning because their tiny size gives them a large surface area for adsorbing pollutants and allows them to penetrate biological barriers more easily than larger microplastics.

2023 Tehnika
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in the Environment: Sources, Fate, Toxicity, Challenges and Mitigation Strategies

This review covers the formation, environmental fate, and health risks of nanoplastics, emphasizing their capacity to penetrate biological barriers and cause oxidative stress, inflammation, DNA damage, and endocrine disruption, alongside current strategies for mitigation.

2025 Asian Journal of Environment & Ecology
Article Tier 2

Environmental Fate and Ecological Risk of Micro- and Nanoplastics across Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems

Scientists reviewed existing research on tiny plastic particles (microplastics and nanoplastics) and found they're spreading throughout soil, rivers, and oceans, where animals eat them and pass them up the food chain. These plastic particles cause stress and health problems in wildlife, but researchers still don't fully understand the long-term effects or how much exposure is dangerous. This matters because these same plastic particles can end up in our food and water, but we need better research methods to understand the real risks to human health.

2026 Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in aquatic systems - are they more hazardous than microplastics?

This review evaluates whether nanoplastics — plastic particles smaller than 1000 nm — are more hazardous than microplastics, examining current evidence on their environmental concentrations, behavior, and toxicity. It concludes that nanoplastics pose distinct concerns due to greater bioavailability and cellular uptake potential, while noting that adequate standard detection methods do not yet exist.

2020 Environmental Pollution 221 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics in focus: Exploring interdisciplinary approaches and future directions

This perspective paper highlights major gaps in nanoplastic research, arguing that studying nanoplastics as if they behave the same as microplastics misses important differences. Nanoplastics have unique properties that affect how they move through ecosystems and interact with living organisms. The authors call for long-term studies on low-level nanoplastic exposure and better detection methods to understand the true risks to human health.

2025 NanoImpact 14 citations
Article Tier 2

The Environmental Impacts of Nanoplastics in Marine Ecosystems

This review examined how nanoplastics—generated by degradation of larger plastics—penetrate biological barriers, accumulate in tissues, contribute to biomagnification, and disrupt marine food chains, highlighting their distinct ecotoxicological mechanisms compared to larger microplastics.

2025
Article Tier 2

A review on occurrence, characteristics, toxicology and treatment of nanoplastic waste in the environment

This review summarizes the current understanding of nanoplastic pollution, including sources, occurrence in water, soil, and air, and potential toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms. The study highlights major gaps in analytical methods for detecting nanoplastics and calls for more research on their environmental fate and health effects.

2021 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 56 citations