The impact of nanoplastics on marine dissolved organic matter assembly

Chi-Shuo Chen; Clarence Le; Meng-Hsuen Chiu; Wei-Chun Chin

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.269

The impact of nanoplastics on marine dissolved organic matter assembly

Sci Total Environ. 2018 Sep 1:634:316-320. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.269. Epub 2018 Apr 6.

Authors

Chi-Shuo Chen¹, Clarence Le², Meng-Hsuen Chiu², Wei-Chun Chin³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
² Bioengineering Program, School of Engineering, University of California-Merced, Merced 95343, CA, USA.
³ Bioengineering Program, School of Engineering, University of California-Merced, Merced 95343, CA, USA. Electronic address: wchin2@ucmerced.edu.

PMID: 29627555
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.269

Abstract

The environmental impact of nanoplastics (NPs) released into natural aquatic surroundings is an increasing concern. NPs are widely generated from our daily waste disposal and eventually reach the ocean, wherein consequent influences on aquatic environments remain unclear. In this regard, there are few studies investigating NP-related ecological impacts. Comprising one of Earth's major carbon pools, marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) serves an essential role in global carbon dynamics. The spontaneous assembly of DOM into particulate organic matter (POM) plays important roles in the marine carbon cycle, and is involved in hemostasis of various ecological communities. Here, we report that 10 ppb NPs (polystyrene/polymethyl methacrylate, 25 nm) appeared in a water column accelerate the kinetic assembly rate of DOM-POM transition. NPs with various characteristics show similar influences on DOM assembly, and seawater samples collected from disparate sites were used to further confirm this unanticipated phenomenon. In this study, we demonstrated that hydrophobic interactions contribute to the facilitation of NP-DOM aggregations. Our results illustrate that NPs alter DOM-POM assembly, which may potentiate unanticipated perturbation to the largest marine carbon pool. Such effects would warrant increased vigilance on current practices of plastic usage and disposal.

Keywords: DOM-POM assembly; Dissolved organic matter; Marine carbon cycle; Microgel; Nanoplastics.