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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Multiple sites are covering a PNAS article on the prodigious quantities of nanoplastics in bottled water [pnas.org].

Plastics are now omnipresent in our daily lives. The existence of microplastics (1 µm to 5 mm in length) and possibly even nanoplastics (<1 μm) has recently raised health concerns. In particular, nanoplastics are believed to be more toxic since their smaller size renders them much more amenable, compared to microplastics, to enter the human body. However, detecting nanoplastics imposes tremendous analytical challenges on both the nano-level sensitivity and the plastic-identifying specificity, leading to a knowledge gap in this mysterious nanoworld surrounding us. To address these challenges, we developed a hyperspectral stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) imaging platform with an automated plastic identification algorithm that allows micro-nano plastic analysis at the single-particle level with high chemical specificity and throughput. We first validated the sensitivity enhancement of the narrow band of SRS to enable high-speed single nanoplastic detection below 100 nm. We then devised a data-driven spectral matching algorithm to address spectral identification challenges imposed by sensitive narrow-band hyperspectral imaging and achieve robust determination of common plastic polymers. With the established technique, we studied the micro-nano plastics from bottled water as a model system. We successfully detected and identified nanoplastics from major plastic types. Micro-nano plastics concentrations were estimated to be about 2.4 ± 1.3 × 10⁵ particles per liter of bottled water, about 90% of which are nanoplastics. This is orders of magnitude more than the microplastic abundance reported previously in bottled water. High-throughput single-particle counting revealed extraordinary particle heterogeneity and nonorthogonality between plastic composition and morphologies; the resulting multidimensional profiling sheds light on the science of nanoplastics.

Also at:
CNN: Bottled water contains thousands of nanoplastics so small they can invade the body’s cells, study says [cnn.com]
New York Post: Bottled water contains 100 times more plastic particles than previously thought: study [nypost.com]
The Hill: Bottled water industry pushes back on new study warning of nanoplastics [thehill.com]
Futurism: Bottled Water Industry Says Please Disregard This Horrifying Discovery About Our Product [futurism.com]
CBC: When you drink bottled water, you're drinking lots and lots of nanoplastics [www.cbc.ca]
Futurism: Scientists Find Bottled Water Filled With Hundreds of Thousands of Microplastics [futurism.com]
DW: Surrounded by microplastics: The risks and solutions [dw.com]
Gizmodo: Bottled Water Contains 100 Times More Plastic Particles Than Previously Thought [gizmodo.com]
and many more, pointing back to the PNAS article.

PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Original Submission