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Synthesis of metal-doped nanoplastics and their utility to investigate fate and behaviour in complex environmental systems

Nature Nanotechnology volume 14, pages 362–368 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Research on the distribution and effects of particulate plastic has intensified in recent years and yet, due to analytical challenges, our understanding of nanoplastic occurrence and behaviour has remained comparatively elusive. However, process studies could greatly aid in defining key parameters for nanoplastic interactions within and transfers between technical and environmental compartments. Here we provide a method to synthesize nanoplastic particles doped with a chemically entrapped metal used as a tracer, which provides a robust way to detect nanoplastics more easily, accurately and quantitatively in complex media. We show the utility of this approach in batch studies that simulate the activated sludge process of a municipal waste water treatment plant and so better understand the fate of nanoplastics in urban environments. We found that the majority of particles were associated with the sludge (>98%), with an average recovery of over 93% of the spiked material achieved. We believe that this approach can be developed further to study the fate, transport, mechanistic behaviour and biological uptake of nanoplastics in a variety of systems on different scales.

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Fig. 1: Particle images.
Fig. 2: General stability of the nanoplastics.
Fig. 3: Representative plot for smooth-shelled (blue) and raspberry-shelled (orange) nanoplastics interacting with the mixed liquor illustrates removal with the sludge over time.
Fig. 4: Depth profiles of nanoplastics in settled activated sludge and rehomogenized sludge.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Kägi and M. Surette for providing discussions and feedback, M. Morbidelli for access to the equipment to synthesize the particles, G. Storti for discussions, L. Jin for the preliminary particle synthesis and H. Wu for facilitating this collaboration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Process Engineering, Eawag — Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Process Engineering, Dubendorf, Switzerland

    Denise M. Mitrano, Stefan Frehland, Michael Schmiedgruber & Felix Schmidt

  2. Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Anna Beltzung & Alberto Cingolani

Authors
  1. Denise M. Mitrano
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Contributions

D.M.M. conceived of the study, conducted the particle synthesis and characterization and the WWTP batch experiments, wrote the manuscript and led the research team. A.B. synthesized the nanoplastics and contributed to the manuscript writing. S.F. performed WWTP batch studies and contributed to the manuscript writing. M.S. assisted in the study design. A.C. was involved in the particle synthesis and contributed to writing the manuscript. F.S. performed the early fundamental tests for the experimental work. All the authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Denise M. Mitrano.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Journal peer review information: Nature Nanotechnology thanks Albert Koelmans and other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Text, Supplementary Figures 1–11, Supplementary Tables 1,2

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Mitrano, D.M., Beltzung, A., Frehland, S. et al. Synthesis of metal-doped nanoplastics and their utility to investigate fate and behaviour in complex environmental systems. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 362–368 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0360-3

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