Advances in Identification and characterization of Degraded Microplastics
A special issue of Microplastics (ISSN 2673-8929).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2027 | Viewed by 117
Special Issue Editor
Interests: biopolymers; biomaterials; polymer degradation; polymer characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Most published papers on microplastics focus on the detection and characterization of microplastic particles in various ecosystems, parts of the human body, and biological samples, which has raised concerns regarding the potential toxic effects of these materials and their impacts on human health. It is not currently understood why microplastics exhibit toxic effects. Additives and persistent organic pollutants have been considered contributing factors to the toxicity of microplastics, although the possibility that these effects are also related to the degradation of microplastics cannot be ruled out. This hypothesis is based on the fact that microplastics are often exposed to environmental conditions that modify their original chemical composition, yielding new functional groups. This could not only trigger potential toxic effects, but also hinder the correct identification of microplastics using conventional techniques (FTIR, Raman, LDIR, etc.). This degradation phenomenon is of particular importance to the study of microplastics because microplastics have a larger surface area than macro- and mesoplastics. Therefore, this Special Issue will be devoted to presenting recent studies of the structural changes that microplastics undergo when exposed to natural and/or artificial (accelerated) weathering, as well as the development of methodologies that allow for the identification of totally or partially degraded microplastics. Papers exploring the potential toxic effects of degraded microplastics are also welcome.
You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Polymers.
Dr. Jose Manuel Cervantes-Uc
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microplastics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- microplastics degradation
- photodegradation
- toxicity of degraded microplastics
- microplastics identification
- degraded microplastics
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