Papers

61,005 results
|
Article Tier 2

Fate of microplastics and emerging contaminants: Mechanisms of interactions, bioaccumulation and combined toxicity to aquatic organisms

This review summarizes how microplastics interact with other emerging contaminants in water, finding that microplastics can absorb pollutants at concentrations up to a million times higher than surrounding water and carry them into living organisms. The combined toxicity of microplastics plus these hitchhiking chemicals is often greater than either alone, and these pollutants can reach humans through the food chain.

2025 Marine Pollution Bulletin 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Effect of microplastics on the environmental behavior of emerging contaminants in aquatic matrices

This study examines how microplastics affect the environmental behavior of emerging contaminants in aquatic systems. Microplastics can adsorb other pollutants and alter their bioavailability, potentially increasing or decreasing toxic effects depending on the chemicals and environmental conditions.

2023 Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (Universidade de São Paulo)
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as vectors of chemical contaminants and biological agents in freshwater ecosystems: Current knowledge status and future perspectives

This review examines how microplastics in freshwater ecosystems act as carriers for chemical pollutants and harmful microorganisms. Researchers found that pollutant concentrations on microplastic surfaces can be up to six times higher than in surrounding water, amplifying exposure risks for aquatic life and potentially humans. The findings highlight that microplastics are not just a pollution problem themselves but also a vehicle that spreads other contaminants through the food web.

2023 Environmental Pollution 162 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as vectors of contaminants

This review highlights the emerging role of microplastics as carriers of biological and chemical contaminants in water environments. Researchers note that while microplastic pollution is increasingly well-documented, the interactions between contaminants adsorbed onto microplastic surfaces and aquatic organisms remain poorly understood. The study stresses the need for further investigation into how microplastics may facilitate the transport and bioavailability of pollutants.

2019 Marine Pollution Bulletin 331 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as vectors of other contaminants: Analytical determination techniques and remediation methods

This review examines how microplastics act as carriers for other pollutants, absorbing harmful organic and inorganic chemicals from the environment. It covers the latest methods for detecting and identifying microplastics in different settings, as well as promising cleanup approaches like microbial degradation. The findings underscore that microplastics may be more dangerous than the plastic itself because of the toxic hitchhikers they carry into the food chain and water supply.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 48 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and associated emerging contaminants in the environment: Analysis, sorption mechanisms and effects of co-exposure

Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as carriers for other environmental pollutants — including antibiotics, PFAS, and triclosan — absorbing them from surrounding water and potentially delivering higher doses to organisms that ingest the plastic, with combined toxicity effects that can be either amplified or reduced depending on the combination.

2022 Trends in Environmental Analytical Chemistry 151 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in Aquatic Systems: Dual Roles as Pollutant Carriers and Emerging Functional Materials for Water Treatment

This review examines microplastics from two angles: as carriers that absorb and transport other pollutants such as pesticides and heavy metals, and as materials that could be engineered for water treatment. The dual-role perspective is important because microplastics do not just add their own chemical burden—they also redistribute other contaminants in ways that can increase toxicity far from the original pollution source.

2026 Water Air & Soil Pollution
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and environmental pollutants: Key interaction and toxicology in aquatic and soil environments

This review tracks how microplastics move through soil, water, and air ecosystems, acting as carriers for other pollutants like pesticides and heavy metals. When microplastics absorb these toxins, the combined effect on organisms can be worse than either pollutant alone. The paper highlights the need for better understanding of how these pollutant combinations affect ecosystems and ultimately human health through contaminated food and water.

2021 Journal of Hazardous Materials 520 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as carriers of toxic pollutants: Source, transport, and toxicological effects

This review summarizes how microplastics absorb and carry toxic pollutants like persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and antibiotics through the environment, concentrating these harmful chemicals as they move through ecosystems. When organisms ingest these contaminated particles, the pollutants can build up in the food chain and eventually reach humans, making microplastics not just a physical hazard but also a chemical delivery system.

2023 Environmental Pollution 261 citations
Article Tier 2

Occurrence and Fate of Emerging Contaminants with Microplastics Current Scenario, Sources and Effects

This review chapter covers the current state of microplastic contamination across marine and terrestrial environments, explaining how microplastics act as vectors for other pollutants — including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and heavy metals — that accumulate on their surfaces. These contaminant-laden particles are consumed by marine organisms and travel up the food chain, reaching human food sources. The work underscores that microplastics are not just a physical hazard but also a chemical delivery system that amplifies the toxic burden on ecosystems and people.

2024 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Insight into microplastics in the aquatic ecosystem: Properties, sources, threats and mitigation strategies

This review summarizes how microplastics contaminate aquatic ecosystems through various pathways, where they can absorb other toxic chemicals and become even more harmful. The findings are relevant to human health because microplastics in fish and shellfish from contaminated waters can carry these concentrated pollutants into our diets.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 225 citations
Article Tier 2

Sources, Effects, and Fate of Microplastics in Aquatic Environment

This chapter provides an overview of microplastic sources, transport, and occurrence in aquatic environments along with their effects on aquatic organisms. The review highlights that microplastics can absorb and transport toxic compounds, are readily absorbed into living cells, and interfere with physiological processes, posing significant ecological and health concerns.

2025 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Transport of persistent organic pollutants: Another effect of microplastic pollution?

This review examines how microplastics act as vectors for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in aquatic environments, covering the physical and chemical factors governing pollutant adsorption and desorption. The authors discuss how interactions between microplastics and POPs vary with polymer type, particle properties, and environmental conditions, and when these interactions may result in toxic effects on aquatic organisms.

2022 Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Water 47 citations
Article Tier 2

Marine microplastics as vectors of major ocean pollutants and its hazards to the marine ecosystem and humans

Researchers reviewed how microplastics in the ocean act as "hitchhikers" for other pollutants — absorbing and carrying heavy metals, pesticides, and chemicals into marine food webs and ultimately toward humans. While direct proof of microplastic harm to humans is still limited, the accumulated evidence of toxic chemical transport through seafood and drinking water raises serious concern.

2021 Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 566 citations
Article Tier 2

Do microplastics mediate the effects of chemicals on aquatic organisms?

This review examined whether microplastics act as vectors for chemical contaminants in aquatic organisms, finding that while chemicals can sorb to microplastics, the evidence for microplastics significantly enhancing chemical toxicity in natural settings remains limited.

2021 Aquatic Toxicology 25 citations
Article Tier 2

A review on the combined toxicological effects of microplastics and their attached pollutants

Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as carriers for other environmental pollutants — including heavy metals and persistent organic chemicals — and how these combinations produce toxic effects in organisms that are more severe than either contaminant alone. The findings highlight a complex, layered toxicity problem that affects microbes, invertebrates, and vertebrates across marine and terrestrial environments.

2025 Emerging contaminants 20 citations
Article Tier 2

A review of microplastics in the aquatic environmental: distribution, transport, ecotoxicology, and toxicological mechanisms

This review examines how microplastics are distributed, transported, and accumulate throughout aquatic environments, and the toxicological effects they have on aquatic organisms. The study suggests that microplastics can affect human health through the food chain, but notes that understanding of combined toxicity mechanisms remains very limited. The authors identify significant knowledge gaps and call for more systematic environmental risk assessments across multiple species.

2020 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 153 citations
Article Tier 2

Interactions of microplastics with contaminants in freshwater systems: a review of characteristics, bioaccessibility, and environmental factors affecting sorption

This review examined how microplastics act as vectors for environmental contaminants in freshwater systems, analyzing the characteristics, bioaccessibility, and environmental factors that influence pollutant sorption onto plastic particles and their potential transfer to organisms including humans.

2023 Journal of Environmental Science and Health Part A 11 citations
Article Tier 2

A review: Research progress on microplastic pollutants in aquatic environments

This review summarizes current research on microplastic pollution in aquatic environments, including sources, detection methods, and ecological effects. The study highlights that microplastics can carry heavy metals and organic pollutants, forming complex contaminant combinations that accumulate through the food chain with potentially unpredictable consequences for both aquatic life and human health.

2020 The Science of The Total Environment 421 citations
Article Tier 2

Tricks and tracks of prevalence, occurrences, treatment technologies, and challenges of mixtures of emerging contaminants in the environment: With special emphasis on microplastic

This review examines how microplastics interact with other emerging contaminants like pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals in soil and water, often acting as carriers that transport these pollutants into ecosystems. The combined exposure to microplastics and these toxic substances can cause cancer-promoting, hormone-disrupting, and birth-defect-causing effects in living organisms, including humans.

2024 Journal of Contaminant Hydrology 41 citations
Review Tier 2

Microplastics in water systems: A review of their impacts on the environment and their potential hazards

This review examines how microplastics spread through seawater, freshwater, and wastewater systems, summarizing their abundance, distribution patterns, and the environmental factors that control their movement. The paper highlights that aging microplastics become more effective at absorbing other pollutants, which increases their potential hazard when they enter drinking water sources or are consumed by organisms in the food chain.

2023 Heliyon 308 citations
Article Tier 2

Research progress on environmental occurrence of microplastics and their interaction mechanism with organic pollutants

This review summarizes how microplastics in the environment interact with organic pollutants—adsorbing, carrying, and releasing them. Microplastics act as mobile carriers for persistent organic chemicals, altering their distribution and toxicity in ecosystems and the organisms, including humans, that consume them.

2021 Scientia Sinica Chimica 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Occurrence, fate and transformation of emerging contaminants in water: An overarching review of the field

This overview reviewed the occurrence, fate, and transformation of emerging contaminants — including microplastics and chemical pollutants — in water, summarizing what is known about their behavior from entry to breakdown in aquatic systems.

2017 Environmental Pollution 723 citations
Review Tier 2

Risk associated with microplastics in urban aquatic environments: A critical review

This review examines the environmental risks associated with microplastics in urban aquatic systems, including their ability to bind and transport toxic chemical additives and adsorbed contaminants. The study highlights that microplastic properties influence pollutant release and sorption, and that current transport models focus too narrowly on virgin rather than environmentally aged plastics.

2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials 43 citations