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Development of an optimal filter substrate for the identification of small microplastic particles in food by micro-Raman spectroscopy

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Abstract

When analysing microplastics in food, due to toxicological reasons it is important to achieve clear identification of particles down to a size of at least 1 μm. One reliable, optical analytical technique allowing this is micro-Raman spectroscopy. After isolation of particles via filtration, analysis is typically performed directly on the filter surface. In order to obtain high qualitative Raman spectra, the material of the membrane filters should not show any interference in terms of background and Raman signals during spectrum acquisition. To facilitate the usage of automatic particle detection, membrane filters should also show specific optical properties. In this work, beside eight different, commercially available membrane filters, three newly designed metal-coated polycarbonate membrane filters were tested to fulfil these requirements. We found that aluminium-coated polycarbonate membrane filters had ideal characteristics as a substrate for micro-Raman spectroscopy. Its spectrum shows no or minimal interference with particle spectra, depending on the laser wavelength. Furthermore, automatic particle detection can be applied when analysing the filter surface under dark-field illumination. With this new membrane filter, analytics free of interference of microplastics down to a size of 1 μm becomes possible. Thus, an important size class of these contaminants can now be visualized and spectrally identified.

A newly developed aluminium coated polycarbonate membrane filter enables automatic particle detection and generation of high qualitative Raman spectra allowing identification of small microplastics

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Abbreviations

PC:

Polycarbonate

PS:

Polystyrene

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection for funding the project ‘Detection of microplastics in selected foods’, of which this work is part of. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the research project “In-Situ Microscopy with Electrons, X-rays and Scanning Probes” (GRK 1896) as well as the cluster of excellence "Engineering of Advanced Materials" at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. We thank Alexander Gumann from Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light for the metal coating of membrane filters. We would also like to thank Holger Kropf from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH for taking the scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bavarian Food Safety Authority, Eggenreuther Weg 43, 91058, Erlangen, Germany

    Barbara E. Oßmann, Heinrich Holtmannspötter & Wilhelm Dicke

  2. Henriette Schmidt-Burkhardt Chair of Food Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy - Emil Fischer Center, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schuhstraße 19, 91052, Erlangen, Germany

    Barbara E. Oßmann

  3. Institut für Nanoarchitekturen für die Energieumwandlung, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1, 14109, Berlin, Germany

    George Sarau & Sebastian W. Schmitt

  4. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Staudtstraße 2, 91058, Erlangen, Germany

    George Sarau, Sebastian W. Schmitt & Silke H. Christiansen

  5. Physics Department, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 14, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Silke H. Christiansen

Authors
  1. Barbara E. Oßmann
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  2. George Sarau
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  3. Sebastian W. Schmitt
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  4. Heinrich Holtmannspötter
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  5. Silke H. Christiansen
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  6. Wilhelm Dicke
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Correspondence to Wilhelm Dicke.

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This paper does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Oßmann, B.E., Sarau, G., Schmitt, S.W. et al. Development of an optimal filter substrate for the identification of small microplastic particles in food by micro-Raman spectroscopy. Anal Bioanal Chem 409, 4099–4109 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0358-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0358-y

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