Papers

61,005 results
|
Article Tier 2

Mixed Contaminants: Occurrence, Interactions, Toxicity, Detection, and Remediation

This review examines how mixed environmental contaminants, including microplastics, heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals, interact when present together in the environment. The study highlights that pollutant mixtures can produce synergistic toxic effects that are greater than the sum of individual pollutants, making combined contamination a more complex risk than single-pollutant assessments suggest.

2022 Molecules 67 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

Toxicological implications of emerging pollutants on aquatic organisms

Researchers reviewed how a broad range of emerging pollutants — including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and heavy metals — harm aquatic organisms like fish, amphibians, and molluscs. Evidence shows these pollutants trigger oxidative stress, disrupt hormones, impair reproduction, and reduce biodiversity, with the review calling for stronger regulations, better wastewater treatment, and more research on the combined effects of multiple pollutants.

2026 Discover Environment
Article Tier 2

Complex Mixtures and Multiple Stressors: Evaluating Combined Chemical Exposures and Cumulative Toxicity

This review examined how complex chemical mixtures and multiple stressors interact to produce cumulative toxicity, highlighting that traditional single-chemical risk assessments underestimate real-world exposure risks where organisms face simultaneous pollutant combinations.

2023 Toxics 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Current Status of Emerging Contaminant Models and Their Applications Concerning the Aquatic Environment: A Review

This review categorizes the various computer models used to predict how emerging contaminants, including microplastics and pharmaceuticals, behave in aquatic environments. Researchers compared conventional water quality models, multimedia fugacity models, and machine learning approaches, finding that machine learning models offer the most versatility for tasks like contaminant identification and risk assessment. The study highlights that while modeling capabilities have advanced rapidly, gaps remain in applying these tools to real-world water pollution scenarios.

2025 Water 18 citations
Article Tier 2

Toxicological interactions of microplastics/nanoplastics and environmental contaminants: Current knowledge and future perspectives

This review examines how the combined presence of micro- and nanoplastics with other environmental contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals affects toxicity. Researchers found that plastic particles can alter the bioavailability and toxic effects of co-occurring pollutants, sometimes increasing harm to organisms, which complicates environmental risk assessment.

2020 Journal of Hazardous Materials 501 citations
Article Tier 2

A brief review on the assessment of potential joint effects of complex mixtures of contaminants in the environment

This review presents new methods for assessing the potential combined effects of complex mixtures of environmental contaminants on organisms. Researchers highlight that many pollutants can cause long-term harm at low concentrations during extended exposure periods. The study emphasizes the need for improved approaches to evaluate how multiple chemicals interact, rather than studying each contaminant in isolation.

2024 Environmental Science Advances 13 citations
Article Tier 2

Interactive effects of micro/nanoplastics and nanomaterials/pharmaceuticals: Their ecotoxicological consequences in the aquatic systems

Researchers reviewed how micro- and nanoplastics interact with co-occurring nanomaterials and pharmaceuticals in aquatic environments, finding that plastics act as vectors that can either amplify or attenuate the bioavailability and toxicity of these contaminants depending on species, trophic level, and environmental conditions.

2021 Aquatic Toxicology 61 citations
Article Tier 2

Characterizing Freshwater Ecotoxicity of More Than 9000 Chemicals by Combining Different Levels of Available Measured Test Data with In Silico Predictions

Researchers developed a method combining laboratory toxicity data with computer predictions to estimate the ecological hazards of over 9,000 chemicals in freshwater environments. They found that using even limited experimental data alongside predictive models significantly improved the accuracy of environmental risk assessments. The approach could help regulators better evaluate the ecological impact of the thousands of chemicals, including plastic-related compounds, that currently lack comprehensive toxicity data.

2024 Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Ekotoksičnost mikroplastike i prioritetnih onečišćivala u vodi

This review covers the ecotoxicity of microplastics and priority pollutants in water, summarizing experimental evidence for toxicity endpoints including mortality, reproduction, growth, and behavioral effects across aquatic organisms. The authors note that combined exposure to microplastics and co-contaminants often produces greater toxicity than individual exposures, highlighting the importance of mixture effects.

2024 Repository of Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology University of Zagreb
Article Tier 2

Microplastic interactions with co-existing pollutants in water environments: Synergistic or antagonistic roles on their removal through current remediation technologies

This review examines how microplastics interact with other pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals in water, often making each contaminant harder to remove during treatment. The interactions between microplastics and co-existing pollutants can produce unpredictable combined toxic effects that are worse than either pollutant alone. Understanding these interactions is important because real-world water contamination involves mixtures, not single pollutants, and current treatment methods may not adequately address these combinations.

2025 Journal of Environmental Management 8 citations
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

Combined Molecular Toxicity Mechanism of Microplastics Mixtures

This review examines how microplastics interact with other environmental pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals, altering how toxic those substances behave. The study explores the molecular mechanisms behind these combined toxicity effects, which matter because in real-world environments, organisms are rarely exposed to microplastics in isolation.

2025 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Pharmaceuticals and Microplastics in Aquatic Environments: A Comprehensive Review of Pathways and Distribution, Toxicological and Ecological Effects

This review examines how pharmaceuticals and microplastics travel through the environment and accumulate in aquatic food chains, with drug residues found at measurable levels in surface waters and microplastics reaching densities of up to a million particles per cubic meter in some water systems. When aquatic organisms absorb these combined pollutants, the contaminants can biomagnify up the food chain to humans, affecting growth, reproduction, and immune function.

2025 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Assessing the chemical interactions and biological effects of a petrochemical and bio-based plastic with a common plastic flame retardant and solvent

Researchers assessed the combined chemical interactions and biological effects when organisms were exposed to both petrochemical and agricultural contaminants simultaneously. Mixture effects were often greater than predicted by individual chemical toxicity, highlighting the importance of studying realistic multi-contaminant exposures.

2024 The Science of The Total Environment 1 citations
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

Interaction of Environmental Pollutants with Microplastics: A Critical Review of Sorption Factors, Bioaccumulation and Ecotoxicological Effects

This critical review examines how microplastics interact with and enhance the toxicity of co-occurring environmental pollutants including heavy metals, persistent organic compounds, and pharmaceuticals, synthesizing evidence on sorption mechanisms and combined ecotoxicological effects.

2020 Toxics 313 citations
Article Tier 2

Integrative Evaluation of the Ecological Hazards by Microplastics and Heavy Metals in Wetland Ecosystem

Researchers conducted an integrative ecological hazard assessment of microplastics combined with heavy metals, evaluating their combined toxicity to aquatic organisms. The study found that co-contamination with heavy metals and microplastics poses greater ecological risk than either pollutant alone.

2023 Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Association of hazardous compounds with microplastics in freshwater ecosystems

This book chapter reviews how hazardous chemical compounds — including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals — associate with microplastics in freshwater ecosystems. Microplastics act as carriers for these compounds, potentially increasing their bioavailability to aquatic organisms and complicating risk assessment.

2020 IWA Publishing eBooks 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Chemical Mixtures and Multiple Stressors: Same but Different?

This review highlights the parallels between chemical mixture research and multiple stressor ecology, arguing that both fields face similar challenges in predicting joint effects and would benefit from integrated frameworks combining chemical and non-chemical stressor assessments.

2023 Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 44 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

Mixtures of Micro and Nanoplastics and Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Environment: What We Know about Their Toxicological Effects

This review examines what is known about the toxicological effects of micro- and nanoplastic mixtures combined with other emerging contaminants in the environment. Researchers found that most studies fail to calculate proper interaction parameters, making it difficult to determine whether combined exposures produce additive, synergistic, or antagonistic effects on organisms.

2024 Toxics 14 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

Aquatic biomonitoring: Importance, challenges, and limitations

This review examined aquatic biomonitoring approaches for detecting micropollutants including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, metals, and microplastics, discussing methodological challenges in capturing real-world exposure effects across diverse regional environmental conditions. The authors highlighted the importance of combining laboratory toxicity studies with in-situ monitoring to better predict risks from individual and mixed contaminants in Latin American ecosystems.

2022 Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management 6 citations