Current approaches to evaluate microplastic contamination of the marine environment include the use of marine organisms as bioindicators and the detection of plastic-associated contaminants in their tissues. Liquid/liquid extraction and/or solid-phase extraction are the usual methods of choice for sample preparation. However, these methods suffer from background contamination, due to the large volume of solvents used and the ubiquity of plasticizers in laboratory environments. Moreover, organisms used in the study may belong to species that are rare or endangered and these should preferably not be sacrificed as a consequence of the relatively sizeable biological material required for exhaustive sample extractions and the destructive nature of mass spectrometry analysis. In this study, we evaluated, as a non-lethal alternative, a procedure involving solid phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/MS) analysis. Two coral reef invertebrates that may be sensitive to microplastic contamination were used for the tests, i.e., the scleractinian Danafungia scruposa and the bivalve mollusk Tridacna maxima. The results showed that the method was effective in quantifying phthalate esters within ten minutes of exposure, offering at the same time an improved control of the background contamination compared to the classical extraction procedure.

中文翻译：

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一种非致命的SPME-LC / MS方法，用于分析珊瑚礁无脊椎动物中的塑料相关污染物

目前评估海洋环境中微塑性污染的方法包括使用海洋生物作为生物指示剂以及检测其组织中与塑料相关的污染物。液/液萃取和/或固相萃取是样品制备的常用方法。然而，由于所使用的溶剂量大以及增塑剂在实验室环境中的普遍性，这些方法遭受背景污染。此外，研究中使用的生物可能属于稀有或濒临灭绝的物种，由于详尽的样品提取所需的相对较大的生物材料以及质谱分析的破坏性，因此不应牺牲这些物种。在这项研究中，我们评估了非致命性替代方案，一种涉及固相微萃取（SPME）和液相色谱质谱（LC / MS）分析的程序。测试使用了两种可能对微塑料污染敏感的珊瑚无脊椎动物，即，在造礁石Danafungia scruposa和双壳软体动物砗磲的最大值。结果表明，该方法可有效地在暴露后十分钟内定量邻苯二甲酸酯，与传统的提取方法相比，该方法可同时改善背景污染。