Search for: All records

Plastic debris, including nano-plastic particles (NPPs), has emerged as an important global environmental issue due to its detrimental effects on human health, ecosystems, and climate. Atmospheric processes play an important role in the transportation and fate of plastic particles in the environment. In this study, a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) was employed to establish the first online approach for identification and quantification of airborne submicron polystyrene (PS) NPPs from both laboratory-generated and ambient aerosols. The fragmentation ion C8H8+ is identified as the major tracer ion for PS nanoplastic particles, achieving a one-hour detection limit being 4.96 ng/m3. Ambient PS NPPs measured at an urban location in Texas are quantified to be 30 ± 20 ng/m3 by applying the AMS data with a constrained positive matrix factorization (PMF) method using the multilinear engine (ME-2). Careful analysis of ambient data reveals that atmospheric PS NPPs were enhanced as air masses passed through a waste incinerator plant, suggesting incineration of waste may serve as a source of ambient NPPs. The online quantification of NPPs achieved through this study can significantly improves understandings of the source, transport, fate, and climate effects of atmospheric NPPs to mitigate this emerging global environmental issue.