{"title":"Nanoplastics in focus: Exploring interdisciplinary approaches and future directions","authors":"Julien Gigault , Mélanie Davranche","doi":"10.1016/j.impact.2025.100544","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Nanoplastics (NPs) are gaining increasing attention due to their widespread distribution and potential environmental and biological impacts. Spanning a variety of ecosystems – from soils and rivers to oceans and polar ice – NPs interact with complex biological and geochemical processes, posing risks to organisms across multiple trophic levels. Despite their growing presence, understanding the behavior, transport, and toxicity of nanoplastics remains challenging due to their diverse physical and chemical properties as well as the heterogeneity of environmental matrices. Currently, nanoplastics are often studied alongside microplastics as a single, homogeneous group, which obscures the nuanced behavior of NPs, particularly in terms of their colloidal properties and interactions within ecosystems. This perspective aims to highlight the critical gaps in nanoplastics research, stressing the importance for field studies and advanced detection/quantification methods to better capture their behavior across environmental interfaces. We advocate for a more integrated approach that account for the dynamic interactions between nanoplastics and surrounding biological, chemical, and physical environments, especially across key ecological gradients. Furthermore, long-term and transgenerational studies are essential to assess the chronic impacts of low-concentration nanoplastics exposure. Innovative and appropriate methodologies are needed to explore NP fate, transport, and toxicity in realistic environmental conditions. By combining advanced experimental tools, field studies, and ecological modeling frameworks, this paper outlines provides a roadmap for advancing our understanding of nanoplastics and their broader ecological impacts, ultimately shaping more effective environmental monitoring and mitigation strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":18786,"journal":{"name":"NanoImpact","volume":"37 ","pages":"Article 100544"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"NanoImpact","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452074825000047","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Nanoplastics (NPs) are gaining increasing attention due to their widespread distribution and potential environmental and biological impacts. Spanning a variety of ecosystems – from soils and rivers to oceans and polar ice – NPs interact with complex biological and geochemical processes, posing risks to organisms across multiple trophic levels. Despite their growing presence, understanding the behavior, transport, and toxicity of nanoplastics remains challenging due to their diverse physical and chemical properties as well as the heterogeneity of environmental matrices. Currently, nanoplastics are often studied alongside microplastics as a single, homogeneous group, which obscures the nuanced behavior of NPs, particularly in terms of their colloidal properties and interactions within ecosystems. This perspective aims to highlight the critical gaps in nanoplastics research, stressing the importance for field studies and advanced detection/quantification methods to better capture their behavior across environmental interfaces. We advocate for a more integrated approach that account for the dynamic interactions between nanoplastics and surrounding biological, chemical, and physical environments, especially across key ecological gradients. Furthermore, long-term and transgenerational studies are essential to assess the chronic impacts of low-concentration nanoplastics exposure. Innovative and appropriate methodologies are needed to explore NP fate, transport, and toxicity in realistic environmental conditions. By combining advanced experimental tools, field studies, and ecological modeling frameworks, this paper outlines provides a roadmap for advancing our understanding of nanoplastics and their broader ecological impacts, ultimately shaping more effective environmental monitoring and mitigation strategies.
期刊介绍:
NanoImpact is a multidisciplinary journal that focuses on nanosafety research and areas related to the impacts of manufactured nanomaterials on human and environmental systems and the behavior of nanomaterials in these systems.