AUTHOR=Hildebrandt Lars , Mitrano Denise M. , Zimmermann Tristan , Pröfrock Daniel TITLE=A Nanoplastic Sampling and Enrichment Approach by Continuous Flow Centrifugation JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science VOLUME=8 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00089 DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2020.00089 ISSN=2296-665X ABSTRACT=
Substantial efforts have been undertaken to isolate and characterize plastic contaminants in different sample matrices in the last years as the ubiquitous presence of particulate plastic in the environment has become evident. In comparison, plastic particles <1 µm (nanoplastic) in the environment remain mostly unexplored. Adequate techniques for the enrichment, as well as the detection of nanoplastic, are lacking but are urgently needed to assess the full scope of (potential) nanoplastic pollution. Use of Pd-doped nanoplastic particles constitutes a powerful tool to develop new analytical approaches, as they can be traced accurately and with ease in a variety of complex matrices by highly sensitive, time-efficient and robust ICP-MS(/MS) techniques. In this lab-scale study, for the first time, the capability of continuous flow centrifugation to retain nanoplastic particles (∼160 nm) from ultrapure water, as well as from filtered and unfiltered water from the German Elbe River was evaluated. Depending on the pump rate, the retention efficiency for the nanoplastic particles in ultrapure water ranged from 92% ± 8% (1 L h−1) to 53% ± 5% (5 L h−1) [