Microplastics analytics: why we should not underestimate the importance of blank controls.

ABSTRACT: Recent years have seen considerable scientific attention devoted towards documenting the presence of microplastics (MPs) in environmental samples. Due to omnipresence of environmental microplastics, however, disentangling environmental MPs from sample contamination is a challenge. Hence, the environmental (collection site and laboratory) microplastics contamination of samples during processing is a reality that we must address, in order to generate reproducible and reliable data. Here we investigated published literature and have found that around 1/5 of studies failed to use blank controls in their experiments. Additionally, only 34% of the studies used a controlled air environment for their sample processing (laminar flow, fume hood, closed laboratory, clean room, etc.). In that regard,

SUBMITTER: Noonan MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10390371 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature