This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 2 of this Preprint.
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Abstract
Microplastic (MP) content in nutrition including potable water is unregulated, although MP concentrations in bottled water can diverge by several orders of magnitude. The EU Directive 2020/2184 on consumable water quality recently proposed methodological approaches to the detection of MPs in potable water in the size range of 20-5000 µm. However, small MPs in the 1-20 µm range are far more likely to pass the human intestine into blood and organs. We therefore investigated MP concentrations down to 1 µm in ten individual polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottled water brands and one tap water sample by Raman microspectroscopy. Our analyses are supported by procedural blank- (negative control) and analytical recovery correction (positive control) using red polyethylene fragments in the 5-100 µm range. We find that MP concentrations range from 19 to 1,154 (n/L) [0.001 to 0.250 µg/L]. Importantly, 98 and 94% of MPs measured less than 20 and 10 µm in diameter, respectively, demonstrating the importance of small MP inclusion in potable water analyses and regulation.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31223/X5098J
Subjects
Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Keywords
bottled water, drinking water, EU directive 2020/2184, Pollution, health, Methodology, 1-20 µm fraction
Dates
Published: 2024-06-08 11:51
Last Updated: 2024-10-19 02:29
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License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
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Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data Availability (Reason not available):
All data procured during this study are included in the published article and its supplementary information files.
There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.