Microplastics in Water Environments: Methods, Occurrence, and Sources
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2023) | Viewed by 3185
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental geochemistry; environmental bioremediation; pollution control of marine and freshwater systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As an emerging contaminants, microplastics of a diameter less than 5mm have been attracting special attention from both academics and government decision-makers since the term was initially coined by Richard C. Thompson in 2004. However, there are lots of opposing arguments regarding microplastics, even when it comes to its very definition. Indeed, the description of a “particle size smaller than 5mm” is different from the common understanding of “micro-”, which describes something with a size between 1 um and 1mm. The concentration unit of microplastics is also kaleidoscopic, for instance, items/kg, particles/L, pieces/kg, or ug/kg. This means that microplastic data are often not directly comparable. Meanwhile, knowledge regarding the toxicity of microplastics is also debatable. Some scholars have pointed out that microplastics have dual toxicity deriving from themselves and from the pollutant adsorbed on them. Others believe that the toxicity of microplastics is overestimated because of the unrealistically high concentrations used in most bioassay experiments. Furthermore, the understanding of microplastics in different environments is in imbalance, with a significantly larger number studies available on microplastics in sediment and soil than in water.
Therefore, this Special Issue aims to cover the following aspects:
- Development of innovative methods and approaches for collection, measurement, online monitoring of microplastics;
- Identification of occurrence and sources of microplastics in water bodies such as lakes, wetland, rivers, and seas;
- Evaluation of biotoxicity of microplastics, released plasticizer, and adsorbed pollutants;
- Other themes around environmental behavior and ecological effects of microplastics in water environment, such as migration, transformation, microplastisphere, climatic effect, etc.
Prof. Dr. Xueqiang Lu
Dr. Chengtao Li
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- microplastics
- measurement
- methodology
- environmental behavior
- biotoxicity
- modeling
- evaluation
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