Coastal gradients of small microplastics and associated pollutants influenced by estuarine sources
2022
González-Ortegón, Enrique | Sendra, Marta | Sparaventi, Erica | Sánchez Leal, Ricardo | Ríos, Isaac de los | Baldó, Francisco | González-Fernández, Daniel | Yeste, María Pilar | European Commission
9 pages, 5 figures.-- Under a Creative Commons license
Show more [+] Less [-]Small microplastics (SMPs) in the gulf of Cadiz was sampled at 5 m depth by pumping it through the ship's pipe system and filtered through a 45 μm mesh size net. Our study reveals that higher densities have been found (130 mg·m−3) compared to other regions worldwide and these densities decreased from the coastline to the outer stations, showing a general coastal gradient influenced by estuarine outflows. SMPs with a size range between 45 and 193 μm were predominant and most of them composed by polyethylene and polypropylene. The metals associated with the MPs were mainly Na (21.1%), K (11.3%), Fe (8.5%), Ca (2.1%), Cr (1.8%), Zr (13.3%) and Hf (0.7%). The high proportion of Zr compared to Fe, which is different from what can be found in the environment, suggests that this metal is intrinsic to the materials used in catalytic processes during plastic production
Show more [+] Less [-]Financial support to EGO and the instrument was given by CSIC through Intramural Research program 2018 under grant number 201830I081. MS is grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the Juan de la Cierva (TJFI-2017-32493) contract. DGF was funded by European Union's H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 846843—LitRivus
Show more [+] Less [-]Peer reviewed
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