The presence and impact of microplastics (MPs) are being extensively researched and reviewed, especially in the marine environment. However, mobility, transportation routes, and accumulation of leaching compounds (such as additives) in plastic waste, such as MPs, are scarcely studied, and information regarding their ecotoxicity is limited. This application note investigates the levels of leachates from plastic materials in vegetables with edible and nonedible roots.
Samples were analyzed by static headspace gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (SHS-GC/MS ) using a static headspace (SHS) coupled to an Agilent 8890 GC and Agilent 5977B GC/MSD. A total of 92 compounds were identified in the 114 analyses, which corresponded to 42 and 72 edible- and nonedible-root vegetables, respectively. The application of chemometrics to the SHS-GC/MS dataset allowed differentiation between the levels of plastic-related compounds in edible- and nonedible-root vegetables—the former showing a higher content of plastic leachates. Several of the quantified compounds indicated potential contamination of polystyrene (PS) and/or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) MPs.
Download this application note to discover:
- a straightforward, reliable, and robust methodology using SHS-GC/MS for the quantification of plastic-associated pollutants in vegetable samples
- new insights into the mobility of MP leachates from soil to vegetables
- how chemometric analysis reveals that organic pollutants accumulate more in edible-root vegetables than in nonedible-root ones.
