Editorial: Analytical methodologies for the analysis and monitoring of nano/microplastics pollution

The evaluation of the environmental impact of nanoand microplastics is one of the biggest environmental challenges nowadays. Indeed, the massive consumption of plastics is leading to the occurrence of micronic and submicronic plastic particles in almost all environmental compartments (water, air, soils, food, interfaces. . .). From an environmental risk assessment point of view, the development of new analytical strategies able to detect, identify and quantify nanoand microplastics at low concentration in a wide range of environmental matrices is required. However, the analysis and monitoring of nano/microplastics pollution is specially challenging due to several reasons. First of all, dedicated and complex sample preparation procedures must be developed, since the use of analytical techniques commonly used for the analysis of inorganic nanoparticles is not straightforward. Secondly, there exist large Research Topic between plastic particles on the physical-chemical properties that regulate the particles fate, e.g., density, porosity, composition. Attachment of microorganisms and biofilm growth on plastic surfaces further complicate the environmental fate and reactivity of plastic particles, necessitating complex sample treatment prior to analysis. Therefore, upgrading existing or developing new methods and analytical strategies for quantifying the numbers and physical-chemical properties of nanoand microplastics in the environment is essential. In this context, the current Research Topic “Analytical methodologies for the nalysis and monitoring of nano/microplastic pollution”was focused on providing a global overview of the most recent analytical strategies developed to fill the gap of the analysis of nano/ microplastics in different environmental compartments. The Research Topic includes 3 Original Research and one Methods article, which are summarized below: In the first Original Research article, Goedecke et al. investigated the occurrence and the mass fractions of microplastics in a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent for several days in winter and summer. For this purpose, authors applied a fractionated filtration of the effluent by using three different mesh sizes (500, 100, and 50 μm). This OPEN ACCESS