EGU2020-9072, updated on 14 Jan 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9072
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Deposition of nanoplastics in high-altitude Alpine snow

Dusan Materic1,2, Elke Ludewig3, Simona M. Cristescu2, Thomas Röckmann1, and Rupert Holzinger1
Dusan Materic et al.
  • 1Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU), Utrecht University, The Netherlands
  • 2Institute for Molecules and Materials (IMM), Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  • 3Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG), Vienna, Austria

Recent research discovered that airborne microplastics pollution can reach very remote areas. However, analysis of nanoplastics in environmental samples remains challenging, mostly due to technical and methodological issues. A new method for chemical characterisation of nanoplastics based on TD-PTR-MS has been recently introduced. The detection limit of <1ng allowed for the first time the analysis of nanoplastics deposited on the snow in the pristine Alps. In this work, we analysed daily samples of surface snow close to the Sonnblick Observatory, Austria (3106 m altitude) in the period from 2017-02-07 to 2017-03-19, using our new method. The results showed a positive detection for various types of nanoplastics, and the most common type found was Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). We will present our results on the to-date longest daily record of nanoplastics deposition in high altitude regions and further discuss optimisations of TD-PTR-MS method for nanoplastics detection and quantification.

How to cite: Materic, D., Ludewig, E., Cristescu, S. M., Röckmann, T., and Holzinger, R.: Deposition of nanoplastics in high-altitude Alpine snow, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9072, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9072, 2020.

This abstract will not be presented.