Development of an analytical procedure to analyze microplastics in edible macroalgae using an enzymatic-oxidative digestion.

Besides being food and a refuge to marine species, macroalgae are a powerful and renewable economic resource. However, they may introduce microplastics (MPs) in the trophic chain. We developed a reliable analytical method to characterize and quantify MPs in common and edible macroalgae. Several digestion methods and filters, along with various measurement options, were studied. A new enzymatic-oxidative protocol with a unique final filtration was selected and validated with a mixture of 5 commercial macroalgae (Undaria pinnatifida spp, Porphyra spp, Ulva spp, Laminaria ochroleuca and Himanthalia elongate). Further, it was shown that washing the macroalgae to release MPs is suboptimal and the potential adhesion of MPs to macroalgae was evaluated. A filter subsampling strategy that scans 33.64 % of its surface reduced the time required to characterize <70 μm particles and fibres directly on the 47 mm diameter filter using an IR microscope (1 sample/day).

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Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.