Recently, we have faced a global problem of microplastics since many studies reported the presence of microplastics in the environment. Due to rapid increasing of plastic usage and emission, ample amounts of large and small plastics entered the environment and microplastics were produced by environmental weathering. Because of this problem, a variety of studies related to plastics and microplastics have been carried out and are currently in progress. However, most studies just focus on the analysis of microplastics in different environmental media. Even though microplastics have various physical properties (size, diameter, shape) and chemical properties (type of plastic), there are no reliable sample pretreatment methods for the analysis. As known, among different environmental media, sediments require much more sophisticated pretreatment to analyze microplastics in samples because there are a variety of compounds, including sand, silt, pollutants, artificial chemicals, natural organic matter, and microplastics in sediments. Unfortunately, there are only a limited number of studies on sample pretreatments for microplastics analysis in sediments. In fact, the sample pretreatment method is of great importance for accurate measurement and analysis of microplastics. In general, the sample pretreatment method is composed of a density separation step, which separates microplastics from sediments using a difference in density, and an organic matter removal step for eliminating different organic compounds, which are attached on the surface of microplastics and interfere with the analysis of microplastics. For the pretreatment, different processes and conditions such as precipitation, agitation, sample/reagent amounts, etc. are typically required. Therefore, this study intends to develop an efficient and reliable sample pretreatment method for microplastic analysis in sediment through systematic experiments using real freshwater sediment samples and standard materials of microplastics. Different pretreatment parameters, including durations of precipitation and agitation, solution density control agents, proper samples mass for analysis, were thoroughly tested during the experiment to establish an effective sample pretreatment method for microplastic analysis in sediments. In this presentation, results of the sediment samples pretreatment and microplastic determination in the pretreated samples will be presented and discussed in detail.

Sample pretreatment methods for an effective microplastics analysis in freshwater sediments

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