Research Progress and Hot Spots Analysis of Microplastics

Microplastics derived from plastic products are plastic particles with a diameter of less than 5 mm. Due to their small size and easy migration, they have been widely distributed in rivers, oceans, soil and atmosphere. Microplastic products are mass-produced and widely used around the world due to their light weight, good ductility, high durability, and portability.

Microplastics Products List

Microplastics can be divided into primary microplastics and secondary microplastics according to their sources. Primary microplastics are plastic particles with very small particle sizes. They mainly come from daily consumables such as cosmetics, detergents, and medicines. Most of them enter sewage treatment plants along with domestic sewage. Secondary microplastics are large-sized plastic waste that is slowly broken and degraded in the water environment through weathering, water flow, and ultraviolet rays. Its formation process is slow and it is the main component of microplastics in the water environment. Due to their wide range of sources and strong mobility, microplastics have been detected in inland environments, oceans, atmosphere, and even remote waters such as the polar regions. In recent years, there has been an increasing number of studies on microplastics.

Research on microplastics includes the relationship between the particle size distribution, shape, color, composition, abundance and surrounding environment of microplastics in various environments, as well as the adsorption of microplastics. From the literature, we can obtain the distribution and sources of microplastics in global rivers, lakes, bays, soils, organisms, water plant effluents and faucet water, as well as in the air, which can provide supporting information for responding to the microplastics crisis and proposing prevention and control measures.

Microplastic detection and identification technology also has potential and room for further development. Due to different detection technologies, the detection results vary greatly, which reduces the comparability and reference of the results of various studies. Therefore, it is urgent to establish standardized microplastic detection methods and technologies.

The development of microplastic detection and identification technology enables simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analysis, which strongly supports the research on the understanding of microplastics and related management technologies. Based on the above analysis of the distribution of research hotspots, research directions that need to be deepened are proposed for reference.

(1) Standardization research on microplastic sampling methods. In order to make research results more representative, accurate and reproducible, there is an urgent need to establish standardized sampling methods. The lack of correlation between the abundance of microplastics and their point sources reported in many studies may be due to the large number of factors that affect the migration and transformation of microplastics in water bodies. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a standardized sampling method that is as simple and quick as possible based on long-term, multi-site sampling research.

(2) Research on the standardization of microplastic detection and identification procedures. There is still a lack of standards for simple and reliable detection and identification technology of microplastics, and it is difficult to compare and learn from various research results; detection instruments are relatively expensive and take a long time to detect, and some detection methods can even cause damage to samples. Therefore, it is extremely important to in-depth research and develop simple and fast detection and identification technology and its standardization.

(3) Research on the toxicity mechanism of microplastics and water quality and hygiene. At present, the understanding of the water quality and hygiene mechanisms and adverse reactions caused by the toxic effects of microplastics in water bodies is very limited, and many research results are quite different. Therefore, it is still necessary to strengthen research on the key factors of microplastic levels in water and water quality health, and to conduct in-depth analysis of changes in the transformation of microplastics in organisms and related toxic effects.

(4) Research on microplastic pollution control technology and equipment in water. Use membrane separation technology and photocatalytic oxidation technology as breakthroughs to develop microplastic treatment or microplastic treatment technology and equipment in source water.

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