A systematic review of microplastics in the environment: Sampling, separation, characterization and coexistence mechanisms with pollutants

Microplastics (<5 mm) (MPs) are widely distributed throughout the world, and their accumulation and migration in the environment have caused health and safety concerns. Currently, most of the reviewed literatures mainly focus on the distribution in various environmental media, adsorption mechanisms with different pollutants, and characteriza-tion of MPs. Therefore, the present review mainly highlights the characterization techniques of MPs and the underlying mechanisms of their combination with conventional coexisting substances (heavy metals, organic pollutants, and nutri-ents). We observed that massive MP pollution has been found in many areas, especially in Africa, Asia, India, South Africa, North America and Europe. The separation methods of MPs in different environmental media are basically similar, including sampling, pre-treatment, flotation, filtration and digestion. The combination of multiple characterization tech-nologies can more precisely identify the shape, abundance, colour, and particle size of MPs. Notably, although recent re-ports have confirmed that MPs can act as carriers of heavy metals and carry them into organisms to cause harm, MPs have different adsorption and desorption characteristics for various heavy metals. The adsorption capacity of organic pollutants onto MPs is closely related to their hydrophobicity, specific surface area and functional group characteristics. The relative abundance of MPs in sediments and lakes had a significantly positive correlation with the mass concentration of total