Abstract
Plastic pollution in water ecosystems is threatening the survival of wildlife. In particular, microplastics may be encapsulated into calcium carbonate, a crucial building block of hard tissue in many species such as molluscs, corals, phytoplankton, sponges, echinoderms, and crustaceans. Actually little is known on the effect of humic acids, a common component of dissolved organic matter, on the encapsulation of microplastic into calcium carbonate. Here, we precipitated calcium carbonate with humic acids and polystyrene microspheres. The precipitation process was followed by measuring pH during the reaction. Composition, structure, morphology, surface properties and microspheres encapsulation extent were analysed by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, total organic carbon analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, electrophoretic and dynamic light scattering. Results show, for the first time, that encapsulation of polystyrene microspheres into calcite crystals occurs only after the treatment of the microspheres with humic acids, leading to encapsulation of about 5% of the initial microspheres mass. On the contrary, untreated microspheres did not encapsulate in calcium carbonate. Our findings imply that exposure of microplastics to dissolved organic matter in water ecosystems could result in enhanced encapsulation into the exoskeleton and endoskeleton of aquatic organisms.
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Acknowledgements
A.L.B. appreciates the help from Ida Delač Marion and acknowledges the financial support from the European Regional Development Fund for the “Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials and Sensing Devices” (No. KK.01.1.1.01.0001). A.S. would like to thank Anton Paar Croatia d.o.o. Zagreb, Croatia, for providing the instrument Litesizer 500 for use and analysis. We thank Katarina Kajan for BioRender.com use for graphical abstract preparation, Giuseppe Falini for XRD discussions and Ana Čikoš for NMR discussions.
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This work has been supported (N.M.M.) by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology obtained through EIT Climate-KIC Alumni ‘Participatory Grant-making’ Programme and in part (N. M., J.K., B. Nj. Dž. and D. K.) by Croatian Science Foundation under the project (IP-2013-11-5055).
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Nives Matijaković Mlinarić, Atiđa Selmani, Antun Lovro Brkić, Jasminka Kontrec and Branka Njegić Džakula. The funding was provided by Nives Matijaković Mlinarić and Damir Kralj. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Nives Matijaković Mlinarić, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.
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Matijaković Mlinarić, N., Selmani, A., Brkić, A.L. et al. Exposure of microplastics to organic matter in waters enhances microplastic encapsulation into calcium carbonate. Environ Chem Lett 20, 2235–2242 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-022-01433-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-022-01433-w