Microplastics analysis: from qualitative to quantitative

Microplastics (MPs) are a class of non-degradable pollutants of global concern. MPs ubiquitously exist in the natural environment and can get inevitably transferred to the human body. Although the impacts of MPs on the ecosystem are not clearly defined yet, their toxicity to human health is becoming a concern. The complexity of MPs caused by the presence of heavy metals and organic pollution further makes it a great challenge to analyze MPs rapidly and accurately. Demanding pretreatment and insufficient data acquisition seriously hinder the precise understanding of the risk of MPs to the ecosystem and human health. Herein, this review covers recent advances in the separation of MPs, identification, and quantification methods while discussing their mechanisms and efficacy. Furthermore, this review details the use of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of MPs, offering a comprehensive overview of the up-to-date strategies that overcome current technological limitations. Finally, challenges and prospective outlooks for the rapid and accurate analysis of MPs are presented. This review provides a critical overview of the literature on analytical techniques of MPs in environmental and food matrices, emphasizing the latest methods for MP separation, identification, and quantification.