Microplastic Presence in Commercial Sea Salt: Sampling and Quantification Challenges

first_page Download PDF settings Order Article Reprints Font Type: Arial Georgia Verdana Font Size: Aa Aa Aa Line Spacing:    Column Width:    Background: Open AccessAbstract Microplastic Presence in Commercial Sea Salt: Sampling and Quantification Challenges † by Cristina Di FioreCristina Di Fiore SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 1,*, Maria Pia SammartinoMaria Pia Sammartino SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 2, Cristina GiannattasioCristina Giannattasio SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 2, Pasquale AvinoPasquale Avino SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 1 and Giovanni ViscoGiovanni Visco SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 2 1 Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Science, University of Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy 2 Department of Chemistry, University of Rome "La Sapienza", p.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. † Presented at the 1st International Electronic Conference on Toxics, 20–22 March 2024; Available online: https://sciforum.net/event/IECTO2024. Proceedings 2024, 102(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102016 Published: 3 April 2024 Download keyboard_arrow_down Download PDF Download PDF with Cover Download XML Download Epub Versions Notes Keywords: microplastics; environment; pollution; salt; ATR-FTIR spectroscopy; Raman spectroscopy Introduction: The presence of microplastics in sea salt has become an issue of a public concern due to the potential negative effects that microplastics could have on human health. Salt, in fact, could be seen as a carrier of microplastics into organisms. However, the quantification of microplastics in sea salt is still hampered by methodological limitations. In Italy, there are three important salterns characterised by global relevance, given the significant export of Italian salt to foreign countries.Methods: In this work, sea salts collected from Italian salterns were investigated in terms of microplastics contamination. From a methodological point of view, the salt samples were solubilised in MilliQ water and filtered to extract the microplastics. The microplastics were visually quantify using a stereomicroscope. Hence, the microparticles present were classified by their morphological characteristic details, like shape, size and colour. Afterwards, the microparticles isolated were chemically identified using ATR-FTIR and Raman spectroscopy to assess the polymer type.Results: The results showed an average of 1653 ± 29 microplastics/kg of sea salt. Regarding the shape, 80.6% of the microplastics had a fiber shape, 18.9% had a fragmented shape, and 2.7% were spheres. The sizes of the microplastics ranged between 0 and 500 µm, reflecting the presence of a potentially relevant fraction from a human health perspective. ATR-FTIR and Raman spectroscopy confirmed the plastic nature of the microparticles. Particularly, polypropylene, polyamide, and polyethylene were the most abundant polymer types in the samples.Conclusions: This work confirmed the presence of microplastics in the sea salt samples, with a fraction of "small" microplastics, which could represent a threat to humans. Further investigations are required to assess the contamination levels of microplastics in the food chain in depth, as well as their impact on humans. Author ContributionsConceptualization, G.V.; Formal analysis, C.G.; Investigation, C.G. and G.V.; Resources, P.A.; Data curation, M.P.S. and G.V.; Writing—original draft preparation, C.D.F.; Writing—review and editing, C.D.F. and P.A.; Visualization, G.V.; Supervision, G.V. and M.P.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.FundingThis research received no external funding.Institutional Review Board StatementNot applicable. Informed Consent StatementNot applicable. Data Availability StatementThe data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.Conflicts of InterestThe authors declare no conflict of interest.Disclaimer/Publisher's Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Share and Cite MDPI and ACS Style Di Fiore, C.; Sammartino, M.P.; Giannattasio, C.; Avino, P.; Visco, G. Microplastic Presence in Commercial Sea Salt: Sampling and Quantification Challenges. Proceedings 2024, 102, 16. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102016 AMA Style Di Fiore C, Sammartino MP, Giannattasio C, Avino P, Visco G. Microplastic Presence in Commercial Sea Salt: Sampling and Quantification Challenges. Proceedings. 2024; 102(1):16. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102016 Chicago/Turabian Style Di Fiore, Cristina, Maria Pia Sammartino, Cristina Giannattasio, Pasquale Avino, and Giovanni Visco. 2024. "Microplastic Presence in Commercial Sea Salt: Sampling and Quantification Challenges" Proceedings 102, no. 1: 16. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102016 Article Metrics No No Article Access Statistics Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.