Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 54, Issue 19, Pages 11905-11914Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c00942
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Korean government [2020R1A2C2007248]
- Korea Enviroent Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation Research Program - Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) [2020003030005]
- Swedish Research Council [FORMAS 2017-00743]
- Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) [ARQ202001341001] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Despite the numerous studies that have investigated the occurrence and fate of plastic particles in the environment, only a limited effort has been devoted toward exploring the characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) leached from microplastics. In this study, using excitation emission matrix-parallel factor analysis (EEM-PARAFAC), we explored the fluorescence signatures of plastic-derived DOM from commonly used plastic materials, which included two polymers (polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene (PS)), two additives (diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and bisphenol A (BPA)), and two commercial plastics. The exposure of the selected plastics to UV light facilitated the leaching of DOM measured in terms of dissolved organic carbon and fluorescence intensity. Four fluorescent components were identified, which included three protein/phenol-like components (C1, C3, and C4) and one humic-like component (C2). The C1 and C4 components were highly correlated with the amounts of DOM leached from DEHP and BPA, respectively, under both leaching conditions, while both C2 and C4 presented good correlations with the DOM leached from polymers under UV light. The C4 may serve as a good fluorescence proxy for DOM leached from BPA or BPA-containing plastics. This study highlights the overlooked issue of plastic-derived DOM leaching into the aquatic environment through optical characterization.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available