Given current concerns regarding the extent of microplastic contamination in the environment, routine monitoring for microplastics in biological tissues is becoming increasingly common place. However, complex sample matrices, such as lipid-rich tissues, require multiple pre-treatment steps which may lead to increased sample processing time and costs, and a reduction in microplastic recovery rates thereby hindering monitoring efforts. Lipid-rich (fat) tissues often pose difficulties for traditional potassium hydroxide (KOH) digestion methods due to saponification. This reaction produces a suspension of glycerol and fatty acids (soaps), which may entrap microplastics inhibiting their recovery and clog filters thus reducing the efficiency of the filtration or inhibiting it altogether. In this study, the incorporation of 100% ethanol (EtOH) to existing KOH digestion methods was found to completely redissolve the viscous saponified gel formed in these reactions, with a digestion efficiency greater than 97% for all treated lipid-rich tissue samples. Recovery of spiked polyethylene and polystyrene fragments, and rayon and polyester fibers, ranged from 93% to 100%. The addition of EtOH did not induce physical or chemical degradation on these polymers. The inclusion of an ad hoc decision-making tool within the digestion workflow reduced pre-processing time for samples and allowed for solid saponified samples to be completely redissolved. This validated workflow facilitates high through-put sampling of biota, by enabling lipid-rich tissues to be filtered with a high degree of efficiency thereby successfully separating microplastics from their gelatinous matrix.

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解决棘手的问题：富含脂质组织的微塑性分析

鉴于目前对环境中微塑料污染程度的担忧，生物组织中微塑料的常规监测正变得越来越普遍。然而，复杂的样品基质，如富含脂质的组织，需要多个预处理步骤，这可能会导致样品处理时间和成本增加，并降低微塑料回收率，从而阻碍监测工作。由于皂化作用，富含脂质（脂肪）的组织通常对传统的氢氧化钾 (KOH) 消化方法造成困难。该反应会产生甘油和脂肪酸（肥皂）的悬浮液，这可能会截留微塑料，从而抑制其回收并堵塞过滤器，从而降低过滤效率或完全抑制过滤效率。在这项研究中，发现在现有 KOH 消化方法中加入 100% 乙醇 (EtOH) 可以完全重新溶解这些反应中形成的粘性皂化凝胶，对于所有处理过的富含脂质的组织样品，消化效率大于 97%。加标聚乙烯和聚苯乙烯碎片以及人造丝和聚酯纤维的回收率为 93% 到 100%。EtOH 的添加不会引起这些聚合物的物理或化学降解。在消解工作流程中加入临时决策工具减少了样品的预处理时间，并允许固体皂化样品完全重新溶解。这种经过验证的工作流程促进了生物群的高通量采样，