Marine debris is widely recognized as a global environmental problem. One of its main components, microplastics, has been found in several sea salt samples from different countries, indicating that sea products are irremediably contaminated by microplastics. Previous studies show very confusing results, reporting amounts of microparticles (MPs) in salt ranging from zero to 680 MPs/kg, with no mention of the possible causes of such differences. Several errors in the experimental procedures used were found and are reported in the present work. Likewise, 21 different samples of commercial table salt from Spain have been analyzed for MPs content and nature. The samples comprise sea salts and well salts, before and after packing. The microplastic content found was of 50–280 MPs/kg salt, being polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) the most frequently found polymer, followed by polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), with no significant differences among all the samples. The results indicate that even though the micro-particles might originate from multiple sources, there is a background presence of microplastics in the environment.

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Carbon nanofibers were produced by the catalytic CVD process by the floating catalyst method, in semi-industrial systems at temperatures above 1350 K. Iron-derived carbon nanofibers were produced from natural gas and xylene, using ferrocene as catalyst source, yielding a thickened submicron vapor grown carbon fibers with a core of multi-wall nanotubes. For the production of Ni derived nanofibers, natural gas was used as the carbon feedstock, and the Ni was added in a nickel compound solution. When no sulfur is used, only soot was obtained, but when sulfur is added to the reactive feedstock, a highly graphitic and very nice stacked-cup-type nanofibers with no free-CVD thickened layer were produced. TEM-EDS analysis confirms that this type of stacked-cup carbon nanofiber is produced only with a partially molten catalyst and methane as hydrocarbon source. In fact, very few fibers have either a particle tip at the end or trapped metal particle inside the wide hollow core of this type of produced carbon material.

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