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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to BIOPHYLM: Biofilm on microplastics - a biophysical perspective
ClearBiofilm on microplastics in aqueous environment: Physicochemical properties and environmental implications
This review examines how bacteria and other microorganisms form sticky films called biofilms on microplastic surfaces in water. These biofilms change how microplastics move through the environment and increase their ability to absorb pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, and antibiotics. Biofilm-coated microplastics may also carry harmful bacteria, making them a greater potential health risk than clean microplastic particles.
Impact of Biofilm Formation on Microplastic Behaviour in Aquatic Environments: An Comprehensive Review.
This review examines how biofilms — communities of microorganisms that coat microplastics — change the behavior of plastic particles in aquatic environments, affecting how they move, sink, and interact with ecosystems. Understanding biofilm formation on microplastics is key to predicting where these particles end up and what risks they pose to water quality and aquatic life.
Biofilm formation and its implications on the properties and fate of microplastics in aquatic environments: A review
Researchers reviewed how microplastics in water attract and support communities of bacteria and other microorganisms that form biofilms — living coatings that alter the plastic particles' movement, help them carry pathogens, and affect how toxic chemicals attached to the plastic are absorbed by living things. Understanding this "plastisphere" ecosystem is critical for predicting where microplastics go and how harmful they become.
Impacts of Biofilm Formation on the Fate and Potential Effects of Microplastic in the Aquatic Environment
Researchers reviewed how biofilm formation on microplastic surfaces affects the fate and potential ecological effects of microplastics in aquatic environments, finding that biofilms alter particle buoyancy, surface chemistry, and interactions with organisms.
Recent advances in the relationships between biofilms and microplastics in natural environments
This review summarizes how microorganisms form biofilms on the surface of microplastics in water, changing the particles' physical properties and helping to spread bacteria and genes across ecosystems. These biofilm-coated microplastics can carry harmful microbes into new environments, raising concerns about waterborne disease transmission and the effectiveness of current water treatment methods.
Colonization characteristics and surface effects of microplastic biofilms: Implications for environmental behavior of typical pollutants
This review examines how bacteria colonize microplastic surfaces in water, forming biofilms that change how the plastics behave in the environment. These biofilms alter the surface properties of microplastics and affect how they absorb and transport heavy metals and other pollutants. Understanding biofilm formation on microplastics is important because it can make the particles more dangerous by concentrating toxic substances that could eventually enter the food chain.
Microbial Life on the Surface of Microplastics in Natural Waters
Researchers reviewed how microorganisms colonize the surface of microplastic particles floating in natural waters, forming biofilms that can include potentially harmful bacteria. These biofilm-coated microplastics concentrate near the water-air interface and are more readily consumed by aquatic animals than bare plastic particles. The study highlights that understanding microbial life on microplastics is essential for assessing their environmental and public health impacts.
Interactions between microplastics and benthic biofilms in fluvial ecosystems: Knowledge gaps and future trends
This review examines the interactions between microplastics and benthic biofilms in freshwater ecosystems, identifying key knowledge gaps around how biofilms influence microplastic fate and transport, and calling for more field-based research to understand these complex ecological relationships.
The Importance of Biofilms to the Fate and Effects of Microplastics
This review examines how biofilms — communities of microorganisms that form on microplastic surfaces — affect the fate and ecological effects of plastic pollution. Biofilm formation alters how microplastics are transported, ingested, and degraded in the environment, and the plastisphere can harbor pathogens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria that may pose risks to human health.
Physicochemical behavior and ecological risk of biofilm-mediated microplastics in aquatic environments
This review explores how biofilm formation on microplastics in water environments changes their physical and chemical behavior, potentially increasing their ecological risks. Researchers found that biofilm-coated microplastics more readily absorb pollutants and antibiotic resistance genes, and may disrupt gut microbiota in organisms that ingest them. The findings suggest that the biological aging of microplastics in nature makes them more dangerous than freshly produced particles.
Assessment of Biofilm Growth on Microplastics in Freshwaters Using a Passive Flow-Through System
Researchers developed a laboratory flow-through system to study how biofilms grow on microplastics under controlled freshwater conditions. They found that biofilm formation varied depending on the polymer type, water temperature, and nutrient levels, with warmer and more nutrient-rich conditions promoting faster colonization. The study provides a standardized method for assessing how microplastics in freshwater systems become platforms for microbial communities that could include harmful organisms.
Investigating natural biofilms on floating marine microplastics and the implications for ocean color remote sensing
Scientists studied tiny plastic pieces floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and found they're all covered with a slimy layer of algae and bacteria called biofilm. This biofilm changes how the plastic looks from space, which could make it harder for satellites to accurately detect ocean pollution and measure healthy ocean plants. Understanding how biofilm affects plastic detection is important for tracking the massive amounts of microplastic pollution that could eventually affect marine food chains and human health.
Distribution, biological effects and biofilms of microplastics in freshwater systems - A review
This review examines microplastic distribution, biological effects, and biofilm formation in freshwater systems, highlighting knowledge gaps compared to marine studies and the ecological risks posed by microplastics as vectors for pathogens and pollutants.
Perspective into bio-fouled microplastic behaviour, transportation and characterization in water bodies
This review examines how biofouling alters the physicochemical properties of microplastics — including density, surface charge, hydrophobicity, and roughness — and how the resulting 'plastisphere' biofilm community reshapes microplastic transport dynamics, vertical flux, and long-term fate in aquatic systems.
Biofilm formation on polyethylene microplastics and their role as transfer vector of emerging organic pollutants
This study examined how bacteria form biofilms on polyethylene microplastics and whether those biofilms help transport organic pollutants like common pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Researchers found that the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa readily colonized microplastics, and the presence of contaminants in the water altered biofilm characteristics. The findings suggest that microplastics in waterways may act as carriers that help spread pharmaceutical and chemical pollutants through aquatic environments.
Bioremediation of microplastics in freshwater environments: A systematic review of biofilm culture, degradation mechanisms, and analytical methods
This review summarizes existing research on using natural biofilms — communities of microorganisms — to break down microplastics in freshwater. Certain bacteria can degrade plastic particles, offering a potential eco-friendly cleanup method. While the approach is still slow and not yet widely practical, it points toward biological solutions for reducing microplastic pollution in our water supply.
Aquatic Biofilms—Sink or Source of Microplastics? A Critical Reflection on Current Knowledge
This review critically assessed the relationship between aquatic biofilms and microplastics, examining how biofilms colonize plastic surfaces and may serve as both sinks and sources of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems.
Beyond the Surface: Biofilms and Microplastics in Aquatic Systems
This review examines how microbial biofilms that form on microplastic surfaces (the 'plastisphere') influence particle transport, degradation rates, and potential toxicity in aquatic environments, including the role of biofilms in carrying pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes.
The role of biofilm and hydrodynamics on the fate of microplastic particles in rivers: an experimental study
Researchers conducted experimental flume studies to investigate how biofilm formation and hydrodynamic conditions jointly govern microplastic particle fate in rivers, examining why some urbanized and industrialized river reaches show no significant upstream-to-downstream increase in microplastic concentration despite theoretical inputs.
Environmental Health and Safety Implications of the Interplay Between Microplastics and the Residing Biofilm
This review examines the two-way relationship between microplastics and biofilms, the communities of microorganisms that quickly colonize plastic surfaces in the environment. Biofilms on microplastics can harbor harmful bacteria, concentrate toxic chemicals, and help spread antibiotic resistance genes through water systems. Understanding this interplay is important for human health because these contaminated biofilm-coated microplastics can enter drinking water and food supplies.
Data supporting Biofilm Formation Promotes Microplastic Mobility via Hydrodynamic Forces
Researchers generated a dataset supporting experiments on how biofilm formation affects microplastic mobility, demonstrating through hydrodynamic force measurements that biofouled microplastics exhibit altered transport behaviour compared to clean particles, with implications for predicting MP fate and distribution in aquatic environments.
Role of biofilms in the degradation of microplastics in aquatic environments
This review examined the role of microbial biofilms in degrading microplastics in aquatic environments, highlighting the potential for biofilm-mediated biodegradation as a natural mechanism for breaking down recalcitrant plastic pollutants.
Microplastics–biofilm in aquatic ecosystem: Formation, pollutants complexation, greenhouse gas emission and ecotoxicology
This review examines how microplastics in water develop biofilms (layers of bacteria and other microorganisms) that make them stickier and more capable of absorbing harmful pollutants. These microplastic-biofilm combinations can carry heavy metals, organic contaminants, and disease-causing microorganisms through aquatic environments, and even contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. The findings are relevant to human health because contaminated microplastics with biofilms are more likely to carry toxic substances into the food chain.
Microplastic biofilm in fresh- and wastewater as a function of microparticle type and size class
Researchers compared the biofilm communities that form on microplastics of different types and sizes in both freshwater and wastewater, finding that biofilm composition was influenced by particle type, size, and water source. These findings advance understanding of the plastisphere — the microbial community unique to plastic surfaces — and its potential role in spreading microorganism-associated risks.