Effects of leachates from UV-weathered microplastic on the microalgae <i>Scenedesmus vacuolatus</i>

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Plastics undergo successive fragmentation and chemical leaching steps in the environment due to weathering processes such as photo-oxidation. Here, we report the effects of leachates from UV-irradiated microplastics towards the chlorophyte Scenedesmus vacuolatus. The microplastics tested were derived from an additive-containing electronic waste (EW) and a computer keyboard (KB) as well as commercial virgin polymers with low additive content, including polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene (PS). Whereas leachates from additive-containing EW and KB induced severe effects, the leachates from virgin PET, PP, and PS did not show substantial adverse effects in our autotrophic test system. Leachates from PE reduced algae biomass, cell growth, and photosynthetic activity. Experimental data were consistent with predicted effect concentrations based on the ionization-corrected liposome/water distribution ratios ( D _lip/w) of polymer degradation products of PE (mono- and dicarboxylic acids), indicating that leachates from weathering PE were mainly baseline toxic. This study provides insight into algae toxicity elicited by leachates from UV-weathered microplastics of different origin, complementing the current particle- vs. chemical-focused research towards the toxicity of plastics and their leachates.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00216-021-03798-3.

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An overview of chemical additives present in plastics: Migration, release, fate and environmental impact during their use, disposal and recycling

Costas Velis, Eleni Iacovidou, Phil Purnell … (2018)

Over the last 60 years plastics production has increased manifold, owing to their inexpensive, multipurpose, durable and lightweight nature. These characteristics have raised the demand for plastic materials that will continue to grow over the coming years. However, with increased plastic materials production, comes increased plastic material wastage creating a number of challenges, as well as opportunities to the waste management industry. The present overview highlights the waste management and pollution challenges, emphasising on the various chemical substances (known as "additives") contained in all plastic products for enhancing polymer properties and prolonging their life. Despite how useful these additives are in the functionality of polymer products, their potential to contaminate soil, air, water and food is widely documented in literature and described herein. These additives can potentially migrate and undesirably lead to human exposure via e.g. food contact materials, such as packaging. They can, also, be released from plastics during the various recycling and recovery processes and from the products produced from recyclates. Thus, sound recycling has to be performed in such a way as to ensure that emission of substances of high concern and contamination of recycled products is avoided, ensuring environmental and human health protection, at all times.

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Occurrence and effects of plastic additives on marine environments and organisms: A review.

Ludovic Hermabessiere, Alexandre Dehaut, Ika Paul-Pont … (2017)

Plastics debris, especially microplastics, have been found worldwide in all marine compartments. Much research has been carried out on adsorbed pollutants on plastic pieces and hydrophobic organic compounds (HOC) associated with microplastics. However, only a few studies have focused on plastic additives. These chemicals are incorporated into plastics from which they can leach out as most of them are not chemically bound. As a consequence of plastic accumulation and fragmentation in oceans, plastic additives could represent an increasing ecotoxicological risk for marine organisms. The present work reviewed the main class of plastic additives identified in the literature, their occurrence in the marine environment, as well as their effects on and transfers to marine organisms. This work identified polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), phthalates, nonylphenols (NP), bisphenol A (BPA) and antioxidants as the most common plastic additives found in marine environments. Moreover, transfer of these plastic additives to marine organisms has been demonstrated both in laboratory and field studies. Upcoming research focusing on the toxicity of microplastics should include these plastic additives as potential hazards for marine organisms, and a greater focus on the transport and fate of plastic additives is now required considering that these chemicals may easily leach out from plastics.

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Ecotoxicological effects of microplastics on biota: a review

Sadasivam Anbumani, Poonam Kakkar (2018)

The ubiquitous presence of microplastics in the environment has drawn the attention of ecotoxicologists on its safety and toxicity. Sources of microplastics in the environment include disintegration of larger plastic items (secondary microplastics), personal care products like liquid soap, exfoliating scrubbers, and cleaning supplies etc. Indiscriminate usage of plastics and its poor waste disposal management pose serious concern on ecosystem quality at global level. The present review focused on the ecological impact of microplastics on biota at different trophic levels, its uptake, accumulation, and excretion etc., and its plausible mechanistic toxicity with risk assessment approaches. Existing scientific evidence shows that microplastics exposure triggers a wide variety of toxic insult from feeding disruption to reproductive performance, physical ingestion, disturbances in energy metabolism, changes in liver physiology, synergistic and/ or antagonistic action of other hydrophobic organic contaminants etc. from lower to higher trophics. Thus, microplastic accumulation and its associated adverse effects make it mandatory to go in for risk assessment and legislative action. Subsequent research priorities, agenda, and key issues to be addressed are also acknowledged in the present review.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Christoph D. Rummel:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5829-3908

Bio :

Christoph D. Rummel

UFZ, holds a PhD in Environmental Science and his research focuses on chemical and ecotoxicological effects of weathering plastics in the environment. He is interested in the relevance of microplastics for chemical partitioning of organic contaminants and the risks posed by environmental plastics and their degradation products across different trophic levels.

Hannah Schäfer:

Bio :

Hannah Schäfer

formerly UFZ, has a university background in biology and toxicology. At UFZ, she worked on projects related to the toxicological assessment of plastic leachates, the distribution of contaminants in plastics, and effect-based monitoring of pesticides in agricultural streams. Currently, she holds a position at the LUBW, Germany, for environmental monitoring across media and focuses on ecotoxicological studies to assess the effects of pollutants in the environment.

Annika Jahnke:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7815-151X

Bio :

Annika Jahnke

UFZ, pursues combining environmental and human health assessment using identical tools. She holds a PhD in Environmental Chemistry (2007) and a Professorship at RWTH Aachen University (since 2020). Her special interests are in environmental weathering of plastics and in novel passive equilibrium sampling to investigate chemical activity driving the partitioning, fate, and effects of environmental pollutants. Research ID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/D-4528-2013

Hans Peter H. Arp:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0747-8838

Bio :

Hans Peter H. Arp

NGI/NTNU, is an environmental chemist interested in how fundamental aspects of physical chemistry can best serve as applied tools for understanding exposure and preventing pollution in the environment. He holds a PhD from ETH Zürich (2008) and a Professorship at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (since 2018). Research ID: https://publons.com/researcher/2853969/hans-peter-h-arp

Mechthild Schmitt-Jansen:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4541-6515

mechthild.schmitt@ufz.de

Bio :

Mechthild Schmitt-Jansen

UFZ, has a background in hydrobiology and is interested in the effects of chemical and non-chemical stressors on microbial organisms including emerging stressors like environmental plastics. She holds a PhD in Biology and focuses in her work on a mechanistic understanding of interacting stressor effects across biological scales using single species testing up to community assays and ecosystem level assessments.

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Anal Bioanal Chem

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Anal Bioanal Chem

Title: Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Berlin/Heidelberg )

ISSN (Print): 1618-2642

ISSN (Electronic): 1618-2650

Publication date (Electronic): 22 December 2021

Publication date PMC-release: 22 December 2021

Publication date (Print): 2022

Volume: 414

Issue: 4

Pages: 1469-1479

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.7492.8, ISNI 0000 0004 0492 3830, Department of Bioanalytical Ecotoxicology, , Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, ; Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

[2 ]GRID grid.7492.8, ISNI 0000 0004 0492 3830, Department of Ecological Chemistry, , Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, ; Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

[3 ]GRID grid.1957.a, ISNI 0000 0001 0728 696X, Institute for Environmental Research, RWTH Aachen University, ; Worringerweg 1, 52074 Aachen, Germany

[4 ]GRID grid.425894.6, ISNI 0000 0004 0639 1073, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), Ullevål Stadion, ; P.O. Box 3930, 0806 Oslo, Norway

[5 ]GRID grid.5947.f, ISNI 0000 0001 1516 2393, Department of Chemistry, , Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), ; 7491 Trondheim, Norway

Author information

Christoph D. Rummel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5829-3908

Annika Jahnke http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7815-151X

Hans Peter H. Arp http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0747-8838

Mechthild Schmitt-Jansen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4541-6515

Article

Publisher ID: 3798

DOI: 10.1007/s00216-021-03798-3

PMC ID: 8761717

PubMed ID: 34936008

SO-VID: f7563ff7-1ee5-4bd7-a81f-21073d08b890

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Date received : 27 July 2021

Date revision received : 20 October 2021

Date accepted : 19 November 2021

Funding

Funded by: Research Council of Norway (RCN)

Award ID: Project Grant 257433/E40

Funded by: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF

Award ID: #03F0733A

Award ID: #03G0268TA

Funded by: P-LEACH (Helmholtz innovation pool “Changing Earth – Sustaining our Future”

Award ID: W2/W3-126 RA-470/20

Funded by: Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH - UFZ (4215)

Open Access :

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Analytical chemistry

Keywords: microplastic,leachates,microalgae,artificial weathering,mode of toxic action,electronic waste

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Analytical chemistry

Keywords: microplastic, leachates, microalgae, artificial weathering, mode of toxic action, electronic waste

Effects of leachates from UV-weathered microplastic on the microalgae Scenedesmus vacuolatus

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Supplementary Information

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Most cited references 38

An overview of chemical additives present in plastics: Migration, release, fate and environmental impact during their use, disposal and recycling

Occurrence and effects of plastic additives on marine environments and organisms: A review.

Ecotoxicological effects of microplastics on biota: a review

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