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A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics

Concerns about the presence of microplastics in the environment has increased in recent years, prompting more attention from scientists. Thorough exposure studies using artificially produced microplastics containing additives are required to assess their potentially hazardous effects. Therefore, an...

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Autores principales: Lievens, Siebe, Vervoort, Evelynn, Poma, Giulia, Covaci, Adrian, Van Der Borght, Mik
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9962165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36827502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mps6010015
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author Lievens, Siebe
Vervoort, Evelynn
Poma, Giulia
Covaci, Adrian
Van Der Borght, Mik
author_facet Lievens, Siebe
Vervoort, Evelynn
Poma, Giulia
Covaci, Adrian
Van Der Borght, Mik
author_sort Lievens, Siebe
collection PubMed
description Concerns about the presence of microplastics in the environment has increased in recent years, prompting more attention from scientists. Thorough exposure studies using artificially produced microplastics containing additives are required to assess their potentially hazardous effects. Therefore, an efficient microplastic production and fractionation protocol was established using a cryogenic grinding and wet-sieving approach. The developed cryogenic grinding method was able to produce (20–40 g/h) polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics having a volume-weighted mean particle size of 391 µm and a span of 2.12. Performing a second grinding cycle on the same particles resulted in microplastics which were smaller (volume-weighted mean size = 219 μm) and had a narrower particle size distribution (span = 1.59). In addition, the microplastics were also fractionated into different particle size ranges using a vibrating wet-sieving tower. The latter technique allowed separating 10 g of PVC microplastics into seven different fractions using six sieves (Ø 200 mm) for 30 min while shaking. By using the developed method, PVC microplastics could easily be made and fractionated into desired particle-size ranges. The proposed protocol could also be adjusted to produce and fractionate microplastics of other plastics.
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spelling pubmed-99621652023-02-26 A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics Lievens, Siebe Vervoort, Evelynn Poma, Giulia Covaci, Adrian Van Der Borght, Mik Methods Protoc Protocol Concerns about the presence of microplastics in the environment has increased in recent years, prompting more attention from scientists. Thorough exposure studies using artificially produced microplastics containing additives are required to assess their potentially hazardous effects. Therefore, an efficient microplastic production and fractionation protocol was established using a cryogenic grinding and wet-sieving approach. The developed cryogenic grinding method was able to produce (20–40 g/h) polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics having a volume-weighted mean particle size of 391 µm and a span of 2.12. Performing a second grinding cycle on the same particles resulted in microplastics which were smaller (volume-weighted mean size = 219 μm) and had a narrower particle size distribution (span = 1.59). In addition, the microplastics were also fractionated into different particle size ranges using a vibrating wet-sieving tower. The latter technique allowed separating 10 g of PVC microplastics into seven different fractions using six sieves (Ø 200 mm) for 30 min while shaking. By using the developed method, PVC microplastics could easily be made and fractionated into desired particle-size ranges. The proposed protocol could also be adjusted to produce and fractionate microplastics of other plastics. MDPI 2023-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9962165/ /pubmed/36827502 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mps6010015 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Protocol
Lievens, Siebe
Vervoort, Evelynn
Poma, Giulia
Covaci, Adrian
Van Der Borght, Mik
A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title_full A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title_fullStr A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title_full_unstemmed A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title_short A Production and Fractionation Protocol for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastics
title_sort production and fractionation protocol for polyvinyl chloride microplastics
topic Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9962165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36827502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mps6010015
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