Microplastics have been found in various living and non-living samples worldwide. Previously, the small plastics were discarded as a threat, but now the evidence is clear, microplastics are dangerous. Being such a new topic, there is a lack of research on successful isolation and analysis of these plastics. In this project, stomach and intestinal contents from sea turtles and dolphins were investigated to determine if microplastics existed within. First, various strengths of methanol, KOH, H2O2 and HCl mixtures were tested to optimize an efficient digestion method to recover the MPs from the tissues. Nile Red was used to fluoresce the microplastics and allow for the shape and number of microplastics to be accounted for in each sample using a benchtop microscope. Every sample had microplastics in them, leading to over 434 microplastics in all the samples. The sea turtle intestines had a large microplastic that is believed to be polyethylene, and a microplastic that is believed to be polyvinyl alcohol. An FT-IR and a density separation tube was used to determine the identity of larger plastics. Due to the small nature of the other microplastics found, the characteristics could not be found from FT-IR. Hence, they were further characterized using XPS and pyro-GC-MS. It is now understood that new methods need to be devised to characterize smaller microplastics.

Analysis of microplastics (MPs) in dolphins and sea turtles

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.