Nowadays, plastic pollution attracts much attention both from society and scientists. The plastic pollution impact on the environment and human health requires assessment urgently, especially through experimental studies. However, such studies are still scarce because of the lack of standard methods for assessing their effects on living organisms. We have developed a process for manufacturing and staining PVC microparticles for using them in biological and ecological experiments. The electrospinning method has been used to manufacture PVC particles; their morphology and size have been analyzed. The obtained PVC particles are of narrow size range averaging 2-4 µm in diameter. They are successfully stained with the fluorescent dye Rhodamine B, which stands for the experiments performed in the seawater.
Keywords: Copepods; Electrospinning; Microplastic; Planktonic crustaceans; Polyvinyl chloride; Rhodamine B; Staining.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.