A review of microplastics in sediments: Spatial and temporal occurrences, biological effects, and analytic methods

Abstract

The persistence and prevalence of microplastics in the environment have raised concerns among scientists, the general public, and environmental regulatory agencies, and a large number of studies on microplastics in sediments have been published. We reviewed those studies and focused on understanding the spatial and temporal variations, biological effects, and analytic methods of microplastics in sediments. Microplastics are widely distributed in marine and freshwater sediments. The distribution of microplastics is mainly influenced by anthropogenic input and environmental processes that determine the transportation, transformation and accumulation. The appearance of microplastics in sedimentary records has been proposed as a stratigraphic marker for the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch. Our current understanding of biological effects of microplastics is based mainly on field research and laboratory-scale experiments using unrealistic concentration and limited forms of microplastics. Future studies should consider environmentally relevant concentration, the diverse composition and form of microplastics presenting in the natural environment. Density separation method for separation of microplastics in sediments is the most commonly used, and component identification by optical analysis (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy spectra, Raman spectra etc.) are important analytic methods. Yet the separation method remains to be standardized across laboratories. Other separation methods include electrostatics separation, organic solvent extraction and magnet separation. We recommend the combination of density separation, electrostatic separation and organic solvent separation to improve the separation efficiency of microplastics and to standardize the analytic process for sediment microplastics in future studies.