Unraveling the Marine Microplastic Cycle: The First Simultaneous Data Set for Air, Sea Surface Microlayer, and Underlying Water.

ABSTRACT: Microplastics (MP) including tire wear particles (TWP) are ubiquitous. However, their mass loads, transport, and vertical behavior in water bodies and overlying air are never studied simultaneously before. Particularly, the sea surface microlayer (SML), a ubiquitous, predominantly organic, and gelatinous film (<1 mm), is interesting since it may favor MP enrichment. In this study, a remote-controlled research catamaran simultaneously sampled air, SML, and underlying water (ULW) in Swedish fjords of variable anthropogenic impacts (urban, industrial, and rural) to fill these knowledge gaps in the marine-atmospheric MP cycle. Polymer clusters and TWP were identified and quantified with pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Air samples contained clusters of polyethylene terephthalate

SUBMITTER: Goßmann I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10620994 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature