Validation of an extraction method for microplastics from human materials

Since the beginning of industrial production in 1950, plastic production has continued to grow strongly worldwide and is now at 322 million tonnes in the year 2015. From these very high production volumes ever larger quantities are found in the environment. There the plastics degradate to microplasticity and spread ubiquitously in the world. The present work deals with the possible uptake of microplastic particles in human organisms. For the detection of these plastic particles, an extraction method was developed and validated.

Biological materials consist of human blood (healthy volunteers, n = 4) and different tissues of pigs and cattles. Various lysis solutions were tested for degradation efficiency of biological material and for effects on the plastics. The mass loss, surfaces and structure variations as well as the physicochemical spectrum of the material were observed after treatment by atomic force (AFM) and electron microscopy (EM) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR).

The different plastic types as polyamide (PA), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) could be clearly differentiated and identified by FTIR. Regarding the surface control, especially PVC showed detectable alterations: After extraction an irregular surface structure caused by protuberances or bubbles could be observed. However, instead of these alterations an equivalent count of plastic particles was found in correlation to the applied plastic amount (recovery rate overall was 99,12±0,67%).

The applied method can be used for plastic extractions from human or animal tissues without remarkable effects on the plastics.