Spotlight January 2021: Nanoplastics challenge – How to improve tracking of nanopolystyrene distribution in the environment.

Home > Spotlight January 2021: Nanoplastics challenge – How to improve tracking of nanopolystyrene distribution in the environment.

In January, we present a paper published in the Nature Journal communications materials. The article focuses on the development of a new detection method of nanopolystyrene. The method not only makes it possible to detect nanoplastics in the environment for the first time, but also to determine their accumulation in plants and animals.

Nanoplastics, which are added to numerous commercial products or are created by further breaking down microplastics, pose a major threat to our environment. Detection in the environment is difficult for two reasons. First, the small size makes it difficult to detect the particles in the environment. Second, the concentrations are very low. However, tracking nanoparticles is essential to understand potential effects on plants and animals. The team led by Maya Al-Sid-Cheikh has succeeded in improving the detection of nanoplastics by using a special label. To do this, they used a special form of carbon, called 14C, which does not occur naturally. Unlike other labels, e.g. fluorescent dyes, this label cannot be lost, e.g. by fading. By using such 14C-labeled polystyrene particles, the uptake and distribution of nanoplastics in mussels could be tracked for the first time. The 14C-labeled nanopolystyrene could be detected even in very low concentrations, which also allows detection in the environment, e.g. lakes or rivers. The method can be used to better understand the distribution of nanoplastics in the environment and in organisms by means of laboratory experiments. However, it does not allow direct measurement of nanoplastics in the environment because they do not carry the label. As the authors also critically note, it is possible that labeled particles and naturally occurring particles behave differently.

Original publication:

Al-Sid-Cheikh, M., Rowland, S.J., Kaegi, R. et al. Synthesis of 14C-labelled polystyrene nanoplastics for environmental studies. Commun Mater 1, 97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-020-00097-9

Spotlight January 2021: Nanoplastics challenge – How to improve tracking of nanopolystyrene distribution in the environment.

Weitere Spotlights


Spotlight September: A methodology for the automatic evaluation of data quality and completeness of nanomaterials for risk assessment purposes

Spotlight September: A methodology for the automatic evaluation of data quality and completeness of nanomaterials for risk assessment purposes

This paper describes a method for automatically assessing the quality and completeness of nanosafety data for the purpose of risk assessment. Steps to develop the methodology for assessing data completeness and the methodology for assessing quality are presented. The methodology is tailored to physicochemical and hazard (meta) data, but can also be configured with appropriate […]

Read more

Spotlight February 2023: New sustainable and promising method to give cotton textiles an antiviral and antibacterial finish

Spotlight February 2023: New sustainable and promising method to give cotton textiles an antiviral and antibacterial finish

Textiles have been the subject of research into functionalization for many years, especially also to repel bacteria and viruses. Since the development of nanotechnological processes, there have been many attempts to incorporate UV protection with nano-titanium dioxide, or to provide textiles with anti-bacterial properties with nanosilver (see cross-sectional text “Nanoparticles in Textiles”). But nanosilver has […]

Read more

Spotlight October 2021: Nanopesticides – a proposal for a risk assessment framework

Spotlight October 2021: Nanopesticides – a proposal for a risk assessment framework

The application of so-called “nanopesticides” (see also cross-sectional text Nanomaterials in plant protection products) is said to have two basic advantages: a smaller amount of pesticide is needed for the same agricultural area and the efficacy is improved. This is necessary to grow enough food for a still growing world population. However, this could also […]

Read more

Spotlight October 2020: Nanosafety – Topic of the Future

Spotlight October 2020: Nanosafety – Topic of the Future

Research on nanosafety is a driver of innovation as the spotlight in July has demonstrated. But furthermore, this research field is built on routine as well if researchers look for the “needle in the haystack”. In many areas the safety research initiates the development of new methods, e.g. for the determination of nanoparticles within exposed organisms via […]

Read more

Skip to content