Plastic litter is a major global environmental problem with unknown consequences such as their breaking down into hard-to-detect microplastics. While these microplastics may be cytotoxic to (micro)organisms, they can also sorb hazardous chemicals and materials, enhancing their potential toxicity. To date, the likely adsorption of commercial engineered nanomaterials into microplastics’ surfaces is unreported, leaving open the question of whether these complexed are being formed and their environmental risks.
In this project, a batch of incubation experiments of commercial microplastics with nanomaterials are proposed. Commercial micro-polyethylene will be used as widely available plastic-monomer, while both ZnO and TiO2 nanomaterials will be studied because of their huge worldwide production. A range of incubation conditions will be evaluated: i) time (up to 3 days), ii) illumination (light/dark) and iii) temperature. The microplastics will be recovered by filtration and further studied by X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled by Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) analyses. The XRF will be performed on the isolated microplastics to assess the extent of zinc and titanium adsorption into the microplastics surface. Selected samples will be later measured by SEM-EDX, allowing to image microplastics morphology changes and the location where the nanomaterials adsorption had taken place.
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