Microplastics are ubiquitous in both marine and freshwater ecosystems, where they can act as a physical contaminant, as well as interact with chemicals present in the environment. It has been suggested that chemical contaminants can sorb to microplastics, such that microplastics act as a vector for chemicals into aquatic biota and enhance their negative effects. It has been repeatedly suggested that the main factors underpinning the binding of chemicals to microplastics are hydrophobic partitioning and the size of microplastic particles. Therefore, we used the hydrophobicity of chemicals, as log K_ow, as well as the size of microplastic particles to conduct a quantitative analysis of published results to evaluate the influence of microplastics on chemical toxicity. We collated data from 39 laboratory studies that assessed the effects of microplastics, chemicals and their combination on several ecotoxicological responses of freshwater and marine organisms. Each chemical was assigned the relevant octanol / water partition coefficient (log K_OW) as a measure of its hydrophobicity, and the mean size of microplastics particles used in each study was recorded. We found no effect of log K_OW or the size of microplastic particles on the interaction between microplastics and chemicals with regards to any of the relevant ecotoxicological responses (behaviour, growth, survival and cellular) considered in this study. These findings are significant in showing that the effect of microplastics on the toxicity of chemicals is more complex than just considering hydrophobicity of chemicals and size of microplastics. We call for more mechanistic experiments to motivate a robust risk assessment and mitigation of microplastic toxicity in the environment.

微塑料在海洋和淡水生态系统中无处不在，它们可以作为物理污染物，并与环境中存在的化学物质相互作用。有人提出，化学污染物可以吸附在微塑料上，这样微塑料就可以作为化学物质进入水生生物群的载体并增强其负面影响。一再提出，支持化学物质与微塑料结合的主要因素是疏水性分配和微塑料颗粒的大小。因此，我们使用化学品的疏水性，如 log K _ow，以及微塑料颗粒的大小，对已发表的结果进行定量分析，以评估微塑料对化学毒性的影响。我们整理了来自 39 项实验室研究的数据，这些研究评估了微塑料、化学品及其组合对淡水和海洋生物的几种生态毒理学反应的影响。每种化学品都被指定了相关的辛醇/水分配系数 (log K _OW ) 作为其疏水性的量度，并记录了每项研究中使用的微塑料颗粒的平均尺寸。我们发现 log K _{OW没有影响}或微塑料颗粒的大小对微塑料和化学品之间的相互作用与本研究中考虑的任何相关生态毒理学反应（行为、生长、生存和细胞）有关。这些发现对于表明微塑料对化学品毒性的影响比仅仅考虑化学品的疏水性和微塑料的大小更为复杂。我们呼吁进行更多的机械实验，以激发强有力的风险评估和减轻环境中的微塑料毒性。