TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanoplastic sizes and numbers
T2 - Quantification by single particle tracking
AU - Molenaar, Robert
AU - Chatterjee, Swarupa
AU - Kamphuis, Bjorn
AU - Segers-Nolten, Ine M.J.
AU - Claessens, Mireille M.A.E.
AU - Blum, Christian
N1 - RSC deal
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - Plastic particles have been found almost everywhere in the environment, in oceans, terrestrial water bodies, sediments and air. The extent of this unwanted contamination is difficult to fully capture. Existing quantification methods focus on the detection of millimeter to micrometer sized plastic particles, while plastic breakdown processes continue to smaller, nanometer sized, particles. For these nanoplastics, methods that are inexpensive and can be (semi-) automated for high throughput analysis of dilute nanoplastic particle suspensions, are lacking. Here we combine sensitive fluorescence video microscopy, NileRed staining of plastic particles, and single particle tracking (SPT) to count and size nanoplastics. With this approach we show that particle diameters as low as 45 nm can be quantified, mixing ratios of differently sized particles can be recovered, and number concentrations as low as 2 × 106 particles per ml can be determined. These results indicate that this approach is promising for quantifying the sizes and concentrations of nanoplastics released from consumer and medical plastics and potentially in environmental samples.
AB - Plastic particles have been found almost everywhere in the environment, in oceans, terrestrial water bodies, sediments and air. The extent of this unwanted contamination is difficult to fully capture. Existing quantification methods focus on the detection of millimeter to micrometer sized plastic particles, while plastic breakdown processes continue to smaller, nanometer sized, particles. For these nanoplastics, methods that are inexpensive and can be (semi-) automated for high throughput analysis of dilute nanoplastic particle suspensions, are lacking. Here we combine sensitive fluorescence video microscopy, NileRed staining of plastic particles, and single particle tracking (SPT) to count and size nanoplastics. With this approach we show that particle diameters as low as 45 nm can be quantified, mixing ratios of differently sized particles can be recovered, and number concentrations as low as 2 × 106 particles per ml can be determined. These results indicate that this approach is promising for quantifying the sizes and concentrations of nanoplastics released from consumer and medical plastics and potentially in environmental samples.
KW - UT-Hybrid-D
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103354447&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/d0en00951b
DO - 10.1039/d0en00951b
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85103354447
SN - 2051-8153
VL - 8
SP - 723
EP - 730
JO - Environmental Science: Nano
JF - Environmental Science: Nano
IS - 3
ER -