Papers

61,005 results
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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

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

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

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

Microplastics as vectors for environmental contaminants in the food chain: Assessing the combined toxicological effects and bioavailability

This review examines how microplastics and nanoplastics act as carriers for environmental pollutants including heavy metals, organic chemicals, and microbial agents as they move through food chains. Researchers detail how polymer type, particle size, and environmental conditions influence the binding and release of these contaminants. The study highlights that the combined toxicity of microplastics together with the pollutants they carry may be greater than either would cause alone.

2025 Toxicology Letters 3 citations
Article Tier 2

A critical review on the interaction of polymer particles and co-existing contaminants: Adsorption mechanism, exposure factors, effects on plankton species

This review critically examines how microplastics and nanoplastics interact with co-existing contaminants including organic pollutants, toxic metals, and nanoparticles. Researchers found that the combined toxicity depends on multiple factors including plastic size, polymer type, weathering, and the nature of the co-contaminant. The study reveals that mixture effects on plankton species vary widely, with some combinations producing synergistic harm and others showing antagonistic interactions.

2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials 64 citations
Article Tier 2

A review of interactions of microplastics and typical pollutants from toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics perspective

This review systematically examined interactions between microplastics and typical environmental pollutants from toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic perspectives. Researchers found that microplastics can alter the bioaccumulation, distribution, and toxicity of co-occurring pollutants through adsorption and transport mechanisms. The study suggests that these interactions create significant uncertainty in environmental risk assessments and highlights the need for standardized quantitative approaches.

2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials 48 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

Interactions of microplastics with organic, inorganic and bio-pollutants and the ecotoxicological effects on terrestrial and aquatic organisms

This review systematically examines how microplastics interact with organic pollutants, heavy metals, and biological contaminants in the environment. Researchers found that microplastics can adsorb and transport these pollutants, creating complex combinations that may be more toxic to organisms than either pollutant alone. The study highlights the risks these interactions pose to both ecosystem health and human well-being.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 126 citations
Article Tier 2

Exposure to Nanoplastics and Co-Contaminants in Foods and Environment: Threats to Human Health

This review summarizes how nanoplastics combine with other environmental contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants, antibiotics, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and what that means for food safety. Researchers found that nanoplastics can enhance the bioavailability and toxicity of co-contaminants due to their small size and high surface activity. The study underscores that assessing nanoplastic risks requires considering their role as carriers of other harmful substances.

2025 Foods 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Ecotoxic effects of microplastics and contaminated microplastics – Emerging evidence and perspective

This review examined the ecotoxic effects of microplastics alone and when contaminated with other environmental pollutants. Researchers analyzed how microplastics' small size, surface properties, and hydrophobicity contribute to their environmental persistence and tendency to bind other contaminants. The study suggests that contaminated microplastics may pose greater ecological risks than pristine particles due to combined toxic effects.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 45 citations
Article Tier 2

Interactions between microplastics and organic pollutants: Effects on toxicity, bioaccumulation, degradation, and transport

This review examines how microplastics interact with organic pollutants like pesticides and industrial chemicals in the environment. Researchers found that microplastics can absorb these pollutants and alter their toxicity, bioaccumulation, and transport, making the combined effects of microplastics and chemical contaminants potentially more harmful than either would be alone.

2020 The Science of The Total Environment 399 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

Toxicity of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Aquatic Systems in Interaction with Biological – Chemical Contaminants: Advances in Remediations

This review examines how microplastics and nanoplastics interact with biological and chemical contaminants in aquatic systems, including pathogens, heavy metals, and antibiotics. Researchers found that the hydrophobic surface properties of plastic particles enable them to concentrate and transport various pollutants, potentially amplifying their environmental mobility and toxicity.

2026 IntechOpen eBooks
Article Tier 2

Concomitant presence of nanosized plastics and metal(loid)s: is there cause for alarm? State-of-the-art and recommendations for future studies

This review assessed the co-occurrence of nanoplastics and metal(loid)s in the environment, finding that nanoplastics can adsorb and transport heavy metals, potentially amplifying toxicity through combined exposure and calling for integrated risk assessment approaches.

2023 TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 6 citations
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

Interaction of toxic chemicals with microplastics: A critical review

This critical review examined how toxic chemicals interact with microplastics in the environment, synthesizing evidence on adsorption, desorption, and the conditions under which microplastics either increase or decrease the bioavailability of co-occurring pollutants.

2018 Water Research 875 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

Ecotoxicology of microplastics in water ecosystems and aquatic organisms: A review of synergistic and antagonistic effects of microplastics on other xenobiotics

This review examines the ecotoxicological effects of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems, focusing on how they interact with other pollutants like heavy metals, organic contaminants, and pathogens. The study highlights that microplastics can adsorb and transport these pollutants through synergistic or antagonistic interactions, leading to oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, and reproductive impairment in exposed organisms, with potential for biomagnification up the food chain.

2025 Marine Pollution Bulletin 1 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

Interactions Between Various Classes of Pesticides and Microplastics

This review summarized how microplastics interact with pesticides from multiple chemical classes, covering adsorption, desorption, environmental transport, and combined toxicity. The authors found that microplastic-pesticide interactions are governed by both the plastic's surface chemistry and the pesticide's physicochemical properties, and that combined exposures often amplify toxicity beyond either contaminant alone.

2025 International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences
Article Tier 2

A tale of two emerging contaminants: Interfacial interactions, co-transport behaviors and ecotoxicological implications between per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances and micro(nano)plastics.

This review examined how PFAS and micro/nanoplastics co-occur in the environment, form interfacial adsorption complexes, and interact synergistically within organisms. The authors found that the two contaminant classes amplify each other's toxicity in co-exposure scenarios and that their shared transport pathways complicate standard risk assessment.

2026 Advances in colloid and interface science
Article Tier 2

Critical review of the characteristics, interactions, and toxicity of micro/nanomaterials pollutants in aquatic environments

This review examined the behavior, interactions, and toxicity of micro- and nanoplastics alongside metal nanoparticles in aquatic environments. Researchers found that these pollutants interact in complex ways that can affect organisms, and the study also explored how metal nanoparticles could potentially be used to remove microplastics from water due to their photocatalytic and magnetic properties.

2022 Marine Pollution Bulletin 68 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Co‐Contaminants in Soil: A Review of Combined Ecological Impact and Emerging Remediation Strategies

This review synthesizes evidence on how microplastics in soil interact with co-contaminants including heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and persistent organic pollutants, finding that microplastics modify the mobility, bioavailability, and toxicity of these co-occurring pollutants in ways that current risk assessments do not fully capture.

2025 Land Degradation and Development