Microplastics as emerging atmospheric pollutants: a review and bibliometric analysis
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Microplastics as emerging atmospheric pollutants: a review and bibliometric analysis Emine Can-Güven 1 Received: 3 August 2020 / Accepted: 26 August 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Microplastics are ubiquitously present in various environments; thus, they have become a noteworthy issue by researchers. The present study aimed to provide state-of-the-art on microplastic studies and in detail to review the researches on atmospheric microplastic pollution in terms of occurrence, distribution, sampling, analysis, sources, and transport. The results of the bibliometric analysis showed that the annual output in microplastic research has increased, especially during the last 5 years. The research hot spots in the microplastic topic are marine environment, surface water, freshwater, wastewater, toxic effects, and fate and transport of microplastics. The number of studies investigating atmospheric microplastic pollution is still so limited, although microplastics in the atmosphere became one of the notable subjects. Natural and synthetic fibers were mainly detected in the studies investigating microplastic pollution in the air. Textile clothes, anthropogenic activities, and fragmentation of large plastics were indicated as the main sources, while the wind was pointed out as the predominant transport mechanism of atmospheric microplastics. Detailed and comprehensive studies on the determination of the fate and transport of microplastics in the air as well as their health effects are needed. Keywords Atmospheric fallout . Fiber . Indoor air . Outdoor air . Research trend
Introduction Commercial production of plastics started in the 1950s and global production reached 359 million tons in 2018 (PlasticsEurope 2019). Plastics are grouped as macroplastics (> 25 mm), mesoplastics (5–25 mm), microplastics (< 5 mm), and nanoplastics (< 100 nm) according to their size (Stock et al. 2019). Microplastics (MPs) were defined as small plastic materials having a size of < 5 mm in 2008 during the first international research workshop on the occurrence, effects, and fate of MP marine debris (Arthur et al. 2008). MPs in the environment result from primary sources (pellets) and secondary sources as the disintegration of large plastics (Rezania et al. 2018). The primary sources of MPs may be plastic production and/or recycling processes (Rezania et al. 2018) as well as daily activities such as using of personal care products (face wash gels, toothpaste, shower gels) (Conkle et al. 2018) and washing machines (Salvador Cesa et al. 2017). The * Emine Can-Güven [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Yıldız Technical University, 34220 Istanbul, Turkey
secondary MPs are released from the degradation of plastics found in marine litter, sanitary landfills, industrial or agricultural sources via mechanical decomposition, photolysis, thermal decomposition, thermo-oxidation, and biodegradation (Rezania et al. 2018). Though studies on plastic pollution started in the 1970s, Thompson et al
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