Quantitative tracking of the transformation of micro- and nanoplastics in simulated human body fluid

Huyang Zhang; Xueying Sheng; Liuyang Li; Anran Xu; Yujian Lai; Jingfu Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.136992

Quantitative tracking of the transformation of micro- and nanoplastics in simulated human body fluid

J Hazard Mater. 2024 Dec 24:486:136992. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.136992. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Huyang Zhang¹, Xueying Sheng², Liuyang Li¹, Anran Xu¹, Yujian Lai³, Jingfu Liu⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2871, Beijing 100085, China; School of Environment, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS, Hangzhou 310024, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2871, Beijing 100085, China.
³ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, The University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China; State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2871, Beijing 100085, China; School of Environment, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS, Hangzhou 310024, China. Electronic address: lai_yujian@foxmail.com.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 2871, Beijing 100085, China; School of Environment, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS, Hangzhou 310024, China; Hubei Key Laboratory of Environmental and Health Effects of Persistent Toxic Substances, School of Health and Environment, Jianghan University, Wuhan 430056, China.

PMID: 39724717
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.136992

Abstract

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) are widespread in the environment and food, posing ingestion risks through various pathways. However, their transformation in human body fluids (SBFs), especially the formation of secondary nanoparticles (NPs), is not well understood due to inadequate quantification methods. This study proposed a robust method for quantifying eight common MNPs using pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) for pretreatment and pyrolysis gas chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Py-GC-QTOF-MS) for analysis. The method demonstrated high performance with recoveries over 90.9 % and a detection limit down to 0.01 mg/L. Most sample matrices did not interfere with MNP quantification, though poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and polyethylene required background noise deduction. High recoveries in SBFs (>79.0 %) further confirmed the practicality of this method. Utilizing this method, it was found that only a few MPs were able to release secondary NPs within the simulated digestive system, with the maximum proportion of released NPs less than 2.1 %, suggesting a negligible health risk from secondary NPs. Besides, ester structure was found not to promote the formation of secondary NPs but did affect surface morphology and functional groups to a certain extent. We anticipate that this work will open opportunities for the health risk assessment of MNPs.

Keywords: Microplastics; Nanoplastics; Py-GC-QTOF-MS; Simulated human body fluid; Transformation.