The distribution and abundance of microplastics into the world are so extensive that many scientists use them as key indicators of the recent and contemporary period defining a new historical epoch: ...The Plasticene. However, the implications of microplastics are not yet thoroughly understood. There is considerable complexity involved to understand their impact due to different physical-chemical properties that make microplastics multifaceted stressors. If, on the one hand, microplastics carry toxic chemicals in the ecosystems, thus serving as vectors of transport, they are themselves, on the other hand, a cocktail of hazardous chemicals that are added voluntarily during their production as additives to increase polymer properties and prolong their life. To date, there is a considerable lack of knowledge on the major additives of concern that are used in the plastic industry, on their fate once microplastics dispose into the environment, and on their consequent effects on human health when associated with micro and nanoplastics. The present study emphasizes the most toxic and dangerous chemical substances that are contained in all plastic products to describe the effects and implications of these hazardous chemicals on human health, providing a detailed overview of studies that have investigated their abundance on microplastics. In the present work, we conducted a capillary review of the literature on micro and nanoplastic exposure pathways and their potential risk to human health to summarize current knowledge with the intention of better focus future research in this area and fill knowledge gaps.
Chromium is a potentially toxic metal occurring in water and groundwater as a result of natural and anthropogenic sources. Microbial interaction with mafic and ultramafic rocks together with geogenic ...processes release Cr (VI) in natural environment by chromite oxidation. Moreover, Cr (VI) pollution is largely related to several Cr (VI) industrial applications in the field of energy production, manufacturing of metals and chemicals, and subsequent waste and wastewater management. Chromium discharge in European Union (EU) waters is subjected to nationwide recommendations, which vary depending on the type of industry and receiving water body. Once in water, chromium mainly occurs in two oxidation states Cr (III) and Cr (VI) and related ion forms depending on pH values, redox potential, and presence of natural reducing agents. Public concerns with chromium are primarily related to hexavalent compounds owing to their toxic effects on humans, animals, plants, and microorganisms. Risks for human health range from skin irritation to DNA damages and cancer development, depending on dose, exposure level, and duration. Remediation strategies commonly used for Cr (VI) removal include physico-chemical and biological methods. This work critically presents their advantages and disadvantages, suggesting a site-specific and accurate evaluation for choosing the best available recovering technology.
Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) is a spectroscopy technique widely used to identify organic materials. It has recently gained popularity in microplastic (MP) pollution research to determine the ...chemical composition of unknown plastic fragments. However, it could also be used to evaluate the degree of ageing of MPs collected from the environment. In this context, the principal aim of our research has been to qualitatively evaluate the natural weathering of environmental MPs collected in an Italian freshwater body (the Ofanto River) using ATR-FTIR technology. Furthermore, we compared environmental particles to weathered artificial MPs under controlled light and temperature conditions and to unaltered pristine materials to assess the results. FTIR spectra were acquired using a Nicolet Summit FTIR (ThermoFisher Scientific) equipped with an Everest ATR with a diamond Crystal plate and a DTGS KBr detector (wavenumber range 4000-500 cm
, 32 scans per spectrum, spectral resolution of 4 cm
). The degree of ageing was assessed using three different indexes known to be related to changes in MPs: Carbonyl Index (CI), Hydroxyl Index (HI), and Carbon-Oxygen Index (COI). The overall results showed that the regions reflecting changes (hydroxyl groups, peaks from 3100 to 3700 cm
, alkenes or carbon double bonds, 1600 and 1680 cm
, and carbonyl groups, 1690 and 1810 cm
) appeared significantly modified in artificial and natural weathered particles compared to the pristine materials. The indexes calculated for polymers degraded under the artificial photo and thermo ageing conditions displayed a general tendency to increase with the time in contact with irradiation time. Particular enhancements of CI of PS fragment and PE pellet, HI of PE and PS fragments and PE pellet, and COI of PS fragment were observed. Otherwise, the following incubation of the same particles at a constant temperature of 45 °C did not further affect the chemical composition of the particles. Moreover, new unique peaks were also observed in the freshwater particles, almost all in the fingerprint region (1500-500 cm
). Differences in CI, HI, and COI were evidenced among the different morphological MP shapes. On the one hand, the CI calculated for the environmental PE pellets showed values ranging from 0.05 to 0.26 with a mean value of 0.17 ± 0.10. Most samples (57%) presented a CI with values between 0.16 and 0.30. On the other hand, fragments presented slicer modifications in the carbonyl region with CI values lower than pellets (0.05 ± 0.05). This index helps evaluate the degradation of PE MPs by UV light, increasing with enhancing residence time in the environment. Conversely, fragments showed greater values of HI (5.90 ± 2.57) and COI (1.04 ± 0.48) than pellets, as well as lines, which presented the maximum value of HI (11.51). HI is attributed to the bond vibrations of hydroxyl, carboxyl, or phenol groups. In contrast, COI is frequently attributed to the vibrations of C_O bonds found in carbohydrates, alkanes, secondary alcohols, and ketones. In conclusion, our results showed characteristics spectra acquired from environmental particles compared to pristine and artificial aged ones. The interpretation of our main results emphasizes the need to conduct ecotoxicological experimental studies using naturally weathered particles due to the unicity of their properties, which are more helpful for understanding microplastic pollution effects.
•Pesticides determination by UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS previous FMOC-Cl derivatisation.•The method showed good linearity (R2 > 0.999) over the range 0.025-10 µg/L.•The LOQs were set at 0.025 µg/L for ...glyphosate, AMPA and glufosinate.•Method required minimal sample pre-treatment.•Method can also be applied for "whole" water samples.
Glyphosate is the best-selling herbicide worldwide. The toxicity on ecosystems and the possible effects on human health have long been at the centre of a complex controversy concerning the authorisation for its use. The peculiar chemical-physical properties of glyphosate, AMPA and glufosinate make their determination at trace levels in the water a real analytical challenge. All three compounds can be derivatised to less polar ones and FMOC-Cl (9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate) is the most common pre-column derivatisation reagent used for this analysis. It can be successfully combined with Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) to determine all three analytes in one method as part of water monitoring programs. The developed method aims to determine glyphosate with AMPA and glufosinate at sub-micrograms/L levels in groundwater, surface and water by UHPLC-MS/MS after derivatisation with FMOC-Cl. The novelty of this method is its high simplicity, robustness and sensitivity allowing the identification and quantification of the compounds at the detection limits required by the European regulations (0.1 µg /L). No pre-concentration or purification steps (by using Solid Phase Extraction cartridges) are necessary for our method saving time and consumables costs. The method demonstrated an excellent linear relationship (R2 ≥ 0.999) in the concentration range from 0.025 to 10 µg /L for glyphosate and AMPA and 0.025 to 5 µg /L for glufosinate. The method Limit Of Quantification (LOQ) is 0.025 µg/L, the lowest among all previously published studies, and it was demonstrated according to the European SANTE guidelines.
Microplastics have recently been discovered as remarkable contaminants of all environmental matrices. Their quantification and characterisation require lengthy and laborious analytical procedures ...that make this aspect of microplastics research a critical issue. In light of this, in this work, we developed a Computer Vision and Machine-Learning-based system able to count and classify microplastics quickly and automatically in four morphology and size categories, avoiding manual steps. Firstly, an early machine learning algorithm was created to count and classify microplastics. Secondly, a supervised (k-nearest neighbours) and an unsupervised classification were developed to determine microplastic quantities and properties and discover hidden information. The machine learning algorithm showed promising results regarding the counting process and classification in sizes; it needs further improvements in visual class classification. Similarly, the supervised classification demonstrated satisfactory results with accuracy always greater than 0.9. On the other hand, the unsupervised classification discovered the probable underestimation of some microplastic shape categories due to the sampling methodology used, resulting in a useful tool for bringing out non-detectable information by traditional research approaches adopted in microplastic studies. In conclusion, the proposed application offers a reliable automated approach for microplastic quantification based on counts of particles captured in a picture, size distribution, and morphology, with considerable prospects in method standardisation.
This study focuses on the analysis, implementation and integration of techniques and methods, also based on mathematical algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), to acquire knowledge of some ...phenomena that produce pollution with an impact on environmental health, and which start from illicit practices that occur in urban areas. In many urban areas (or agroecosystems), the practice of illegal waste disposing by commercial activities, by abandoning it in the countryside rather than spending economic resources to ensure correct disposal, is widespread. This causes an accumulation of waste in these areas (which can also be protected natural areas), which are then also set on fire to reduce their volume. Obviously, the repercussions of such actions are many. The burning of waste releases contaminants into the environment such as dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls and furans, and deposits other elements on the soil, such as heavy metals, which, by leaching and percolating, contaminate water resources such as rivers and aquifers. The main objective is the design and implementation of monitoring programs against specific illicit activities that take into account territorial peculiarities. This advanced approach leverages AI and GIS environments to interpret environmental states, providing an understanding of ongoing phenomena. The methodology used is based on the implementation of mathematical and AI algorithms, integrated into a GIS environment to address even large-scale environmental issues, improving the spatial and temporal precision of the analyses and allowing the customization of monitoring programs in urban and peri-urban environments based on territorial characteristics. The results of the application of the methodology show the percentages of the different types of waste found in the agroecosystems of the study area and the degree of concentration, allowing the identification of similar areas with greater criticality. Subsequently, through network and nearest neighbour analysis, it is possible to start targeted checks.
Microplastics (MPs) have received increasing attention in the last decade and are now considered among the most concerning emerging pollutants in natural environments. Here, the current knowledge on ...microplastic ingestion by wild freshwater fish is reviewed with a focus on the identification of possible factors leading to the ingestion of MPs and the consequences on fish health. Within the literature, 257 species of freshwater fishes from 32 countries have been documented to ingest MPs. MPs ingestion was found to increase with rising level of urbanization, although a direct correlation with MPs concentration in the surrounding water has not been identified. MPs ingestion was detected in all the published articles, with MPs presence in more than 50% of the specimens analyzed in one study out of two. Together with the digestive tract, MPs were also found in the gills, and there is evidence that MPs can translocate to different tissues of the organism. Strong evidence, therefore, exists that MPs may represent a serious risk for ecosystems, and are a direct danger for human health. Moreover, toxicological effects have also been highlighted in wild catches, demonstrating the importance of this problem and suggesting the need for laboratory experiments more representative of the environmental situation.
A laboratory-scale study was carried out to evaluate the groundwater bioremediation potential of hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), taking into account the chromate pollution of an industrial site located ...in Southern Italy (Apulia Region). The reduction of Cr(VI) was studied on laboratory microcosms, set up in different experimental conditions, namely: ABIO (soil and water sterilized), BIO (soil and water not sterilized), LATT (with the addition of lactate), and YE (with the addition of yeast extract). Control test lines, set up by using sterilized matrices and amendments, were employed to assess the occurrence of the pollutant reduction via chemical processes. By combining molecular (microbial abundance, specific chromate reductase genes (ChR) and the
bacterial strain) with chemical analyses of chromium (VI and III) in the matrices (water and soil) of each microcosm, it was possible to investigate the response of microbial populations to different experimental conditions, and therefore, to assess their bioremediation capability in promoting Cr(VI) reduction. The overall results achieved within this work evidenced the key role of amendments (lactate and yeast extract) in enhancing the biological reduction of hexavalent chromium in the contaminated aqueous phase of laboratory microcosms. The highest value of Cr(VI) removal (99.47%) was obtained in the YE amended microcosms at seven days.
This is a systematic literature review of the application of machine learning (ML) algorithms in geosciences, with a focus on environmental monitoring applications. ML algorithms, with their ability ...to analyze vast quantities of data, decipher complex relationships, and predict future events, and they offer promising capabilities to implement technologies based on more precise and reliable data processing. This review considers several vulnerable and particularly at-risk themes as landfills, mining activities, the protection of coastal dunes, illegal discharges into water bodies, and the pollution and degradation of soil and water matrices in large industrial complexes. These case studies about environmental monitoring provide an opportunity to better examine the impact of human activities on the environment, with a specific focus on water and soil matrices. The recent literature underscores the increasing importance of ML in these contexts, highlighting a preference for adapted classic models: random forest (RF) (the most widely used), decision trees (DTs), support vector machines (SVMs), artificial neural networks (ANNs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), principal component analysis (PCA), and much more. In the field of environmental management, the following methodologies offer invaluable insights that can steer strategic planning and decision-making based on more accurate image classification, prediction models, object detection and recognition, map classification, data classification, and environmental variable predictions.
The coast of the Province of Brindisi, located in the south of Italy, is characterised by a large network of wetlands and coastal dunes of great ecological importance. These represent important ...habitats for flora and fauna, serving as feeding, breeding and migration areas for many bird species. Unfortunately, the state of health of some of these species is subject to various threats that put the ecological balance and local biodiversity at risk. It is essential to conduct regular and thorough monitoring over time to fully understand the presence of impacts on these ecosystems and to quickly take all necessary corrective measures to counter their main human-made threats, such as excessive urbanisation. This work reports the methods and results of the monitoring carried out along coastal dunes and a lagoon to identify their state of health and assess the presence of threatening factors capable of negatively altering their naturalness. The results indicate a situation of degradation affecting the coastal dunes but a good quality of the water resource. The study area is not currently affected by continuous monitoring programs and, therefore, we believe it is necessary to start a process in this sense, given the high naturalistic and historical value of the area. Finally, indications are provided to implement conservation measures to protect and preserve these precious coastal habitats, ensuring their survival for future generations.
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