摘要

塑料可以在全球所有生态系统中找到。这种环境污染很重要，即使其影响尚未完全了解。在微米和纳米尺度上存在小塑料颗粒越来越受到关注，但在天然样品中尚未观察到纳米塑料。在这项研究中，我们检查了北大西洋副热带环流中收集的碎片的四种尺寸部分（中观，大型微小，微小和纳米塑料）。为了获得纳米塑料部分，我们分离了海水的胶体部分。超滤后，使用动态光散射实验证明了纳米级颗粒的出现。通过热解结合气相色谱 - 质谱法获得胶体的化学指纹图谱。我们证明了这种信号是人为的，并归因于塑料的组合。聚合物组成在尺寸等级之间变化。在微米和纳米尺度下，观察到聚氯乙烯，聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯，聚苯乙烯和聚乙烯。我们还观察到聚乙烯的热解信号随着碎片尺寸的减小而发生变化，这可能与由于风化导致的这种塑料的结构改性有关。

Plastics can be found in all ecosystems across the globe. This type of environmental pollution is important, even if its impact is not fully understood. The presence of small plastic particles at the micro- and nanoscales is of growing concern, but nanoplastic has not yet been observed in natural samples. In this study, we examined four size fractions (meso-, large micro-, small micro-, and nanoplastics) of debris collected in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. To obtain the nanoplastic portion, we isolated the colloidal fraction of seawater. After ultrafiltration, the occurrence of nanoscale particles was demonstrated using dynamic light scattering experiments. The chemical fingerprint of the colloids was obtained by pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. We demonstrated that the signal was anthropogenic and attributed to a combination of plastics. The polymer composition varied among the size classes. At the micro- and nanoscales, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene and polyethylene were observed. We also observed changes in the pyrolytic signals of polyethylene with decreasing debris size, which could be related to the structural modification of this plastic as a consequence of weathering.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29161030