Massive amounts of plastic waste have been released into ecosystems, generating huge amounts of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) during the environmental aging process. However, particle size and number dynamics along the aging process have not been quantitatively assessed, which can greatly influence their fate and environmental risk assessment. We applied single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (spICP-MS) to quantitatively analyze the polystyrene (PS) MPs aging process with a wide particle size range (800 nm−5 μm) as well as particle number concentration at an environmentally relevant value (down to 7.1 × 10 6 particles/L). We investigated the UV-light accelerated aging dynamics of PS MPs and revealed the generation of large amounts of nano/microsize PS MPs fragments. PS MPs showed a rapid size downtrend along the aging process, shrinking from 5 to 1 μm. At the same time, PS MPs particle number concentration increased 3 times. Furthermore, pristine PS MPs may induce acute toxicity in feeding behavior, growth, and survival, while aged ones caused marked chronic toxicity on the reproduction inhibition of Daphnia magna, both at environmentally relevant concentrations. Overall, the research uncovered and quantified MPs particle size and concentration during the aging process, which is essential to assessing ecotoxicological risks of MPs/NPs.
The wide application of nanotechnology has led to the inevitable release and transport of metal-based nanoparticles (MNPs) into the environment. However, very few studies have examined the occurrence of MNPs in indoor dust. Here, we report the occurrence of 10 distinct types of MNPs in indoor dust, confirming its carrier role for MNPs. In particular, up to ∼4000 μg of MNPs/g of dust, including Fe-based MNPs (∼200 nm, equivalent spherical diameter), were found in indoor dust samples collected from both residential and public areas. Though the collected indoor dust exhibited a magnetic response, negligible differences were observed in the composition of MNPs, particle concentrations, and size distributions before and after magnetic separation, which suggested that MNPs in indoor dust were clusters containing multiple elements. Furthermore, indoor dust-associated MNPs easily aggregated when being exposed to lung fluid (e.g., the size of Fe-based MNPs increased ∼2.8-fold). Indoor dust with multielement MNPs can induce oxidative stress by generating more reactive oxygen species, and the estimated •OH concentration was increased by 1.5 times compared with the control. Long-term exposure to MNPs in indoor habitats may induce health risks, highlighting the need to better characterize these indoor contaminants.
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