This study addresses the critical need for the effective removal of nanoplastics (1 nm to 1000 nm), which pose a significant environmental challenge due to their ease of entry into biological systems and poorly understood health impacts. We report our investigation of a plasma-assisted methodology with a falling film plasma reactor to destroy and remove 200 nm polystyrene nanoplastic particles from their aqueous solution. Using the nanoparticle tracking analysis, size exclusion chromatography, and total organic carbon (TOC) analysis, we examined the degradation kinetics of the nanoplastics upon plasma-assisted treatment. A nanoplastic removal rate of 98.4% by particle count was achieved in one hour of treatment. This rate increased to 99.3% after three hours of treatment, along with a 27.4% reduction in the TOC of the solution. The chromatography results indicate that the observed elimination of nanoplastic contaminants was likely through the production of short polystyrene oligomers with molecular weights roughly equivalent to those of two styrene units. The superior efficacy of the plasma-assisted methodology over traditional ozonation to destroy nanoplastics was also illustrated. Our results not only elucidate a hypothesized polystyrene radical decay mechanism but also demonstrate a potential and complementary approach for mitigating nanoplastic pollution in water purification strategies.

中文翻译：

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等离子体辅助破坏聚苯乙烯纳米塑料


本研究解决了有效去除纳米塑料（1 nm 至 1000 nm）的迫切需求，由于纳米塑料易于进入生物系统和对健康的影响知之甚少，纳米塑料构成了重大的环境挑战。我们报告了我们对一种等离子体辅助方法的研究，该方法使用降膜等离子体反应器从其水溶液中破坏和去除 200 nm 聚苯乙烯纳米塑料颗粒。使用纳米颗粒跟踪分析、尺寸排阻色谱和总有机碳 （TOC） 分析，我们检查了等离子体辅助处理后纳米塑料的降解动力学。处理 1 小时内颗粒计数的纳米塑料去除率为 98.4%。治疗 3 小时后，该比率增加到 99.3%，同时溶液的 TOC 降低了 27.4%。色谱结果表明，观察到的纳米塑料污染物的消除可能是通过生产分子量大致相当于两个苯乙烯单元的分子量的短聚苯乙烯低聚物来实现的。还说明了等离子体辅助方法在破坏纳米塑料方面优于传统臭氧化的功效。我们的结果不仅阐明了一种假设的聚苯乙烯自由基衰变机制，还展示了一种在水净化策略中减轻纳米塑料污染的潜在互补方法。