Abstract
Biodegradable microplastics (BMPs) are considered to be environmentally friendly compared to non-biodegradable plastics (NMPs). However, BMPs are likely to become toxic during their transport because of the adsorption of pollutants (e.g., heavy metals) onto them. This study investigated the uptake of six heavy metals (Cd2+, Cu2+, Cr3+, Ni2+, Pb2+, and Zn2+) by a common BMPs (polylactic acid (PLA)) and compared their adsorption characteristics to those of three types of NMPs (polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)) for the first time. The order of heavy metal adsorption capacity among the four MPs was PE > PLA > PVC > PP. The findings suggest that BMPs contained more toxic heavy metals than some NMPs. Among the six heavy metals, Cr3+ showed considerably stronger adsorption than other heavy metals in both BMPS and NMPs. The adsorption of heavy metals on MPs can be well explained using the Langmuir isotherm model, while the adsorption kinetic curves showed the best fit to the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation. Desorption experiments revealed that BMPs released a higher percentage of heavy metals (54.6–62.6%) in the acidic environment in a shorter time (~ 6 h) compared to NMPs. Overall, this study provides insights into interactions of BMPs and NMPs with heavy metals and their removal mechanisms in aquatic environment.
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This appointment of the author, BKB, is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Singapore, and Ministry of National Development (MND), Singapore, under its Cities of Tomorrow R&D Programme (CoT Award COT-V4-2019–6).
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Shuyue Yan: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, visualization, and writing—original draft. Basant Kumar Biswal: literature review, conceptualization, research direction, data curation, formal analysis, and writing—final draft. Both these authors made equal contribution to the project. Rajasekhar Balasubramanian: problem statement, research direction, supervision, research grant management, and writing—review and editing.
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Yan, S., Biswal, B.K. & Balasubramanian, R. Insights into interactions of biodegradable and non-biodegradable microplastics with heavy metals. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 107419–107434 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27906-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27906-1