This study demonstrates that enzymatic degradation of polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) can be achieved by tuning PBT's semicrystalline properties and incubation conditions. Polymers with a high conte....

Prof. Dr. Heike Feldhaar hat die Bayerische Staatsmedaille für herausragende Verdienste um die Umwelt erhalten.

Microplastics (MPs) are recognized as emerging pollutants in aquatic environments, where they are rapidly colonized by microbial communities that form biofilms. These biofilms can alter the environmen...

In 2021 the Toxicity of Microplastics Explorer (ToMEx, https://microplastics.sccwrp.org ) was released as an open source, open access database and web application for microplastics toxicity. Since then, it has been utilized by the microplastic research community for the exploration, visualization, and analysis of toxicity data for both hazard characterization and risk assessment. The peer-reviewed literature has continued to grow exponentially, making ToMEx out-of-date. To ensure the continued utility of ToMEx, an international crowd-sourcing approach was utilized to update ToMEx by extracting data from additional studies published since the original release. Through this process, both the aquatic and human health ToMEx databases roughly doubled in size, and modest increases in data diversity (e.g., number of species represented, types of test particles) were observed in the aquatic organisms database. However, most trends (e.g., greater toxicities observed with smaller particle sizes, lack of dose–response data etc.) observed in the first iteration of ToMEx remained constant. A previously developed framework for deriving ecological health-based microplastic thresholds using species sensitivity distributions was reapplied to determine how thresholds and their associated uncertainty intervals would change following the database update. Twelve new studies passed minimum screening criteria and were deemed fit for the purpose of threshold derivation. The addition of new data allowed for the separation of freshwater and marine compartments which had previously been combined due to a lack of applicable toxicity data for freshwater species. When molecular and cellular level endpoints were included, freshwater thresholds were comparable or increased from values calculated using previous data (-5 to 2.5-fold change) whereas marine thresholds dramatically decreased (-5000 to -29-fold change). However, when endpoints were restricted to organism and above, marine and freshwater thresholds were comparable to those calculated previously (-20 to 14-fold change). Confidence intervals for both marine and freshwater thresholds remained wide. The doubling of the database increases the value of ToMEx for researchers, particularly those focused on characterizing hazards associated with microplastics. Its utility remains limited for environmental managers as 89% of studies in ToMEx 2.0 failed to meet minimum screening criteria for threshold derivation, highlighting the need to generate fit-for-purpose toxicity data for threshold development. However, ToMEx continues to be a useful research tool, and future iterations could become even more powerful through novel artificial intelligence applications to streamline data curation and even predict toxicological outcomes.

Abstract. Several micro- and nanoplastic particle (MNP) traits, like polymer type, size, and shape, have been shown to influence MNP toxicity. However, the

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The enzymatic degradation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) offers a sustainable solution for PET recycling. Over the past two decades, more than 100 PETases have been characterized, primarily exhi...

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous in the environment, but their vertical movement in undisturbed soils is poorly understood. This study investigates MP distribution and transport in one 110 cm soil profile from a Rhine River floodplain, Germany. Nine soil samples were analyzed for MP content, grain size distribution, bulk density, porosity, and organic carbon content. MPs (10 $$\upmu$$ μ m to 5 mm) were characterized by size, shape, and polymer type using ATR-FTIR and $$\upmu$$ μ FTIR. Biological activity was assessed through earthworm species identification and abundance, and sediment deposition was dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to integrate detailed field observations with dating results to draw conclusions about the vertical displacement of microplastics. MPs were detected at all depths, with 81.3%–96.6% being 10–150 $$\upmu$$ μ m in size, predominantly fragments and spheres. Concentrations peaked at 790,497 particles $$kg^{-1}$$ k g - 1 dry soil between 38 and 45 cm, where root- and earthworm-formed macropores facilitated transport. Below this depth, reduced porosity limited movement, favoring smaller MPs. OSL dating indicated sedimentation before the 1950s/60s below 20 cm, suggesting vertical transport of MPs. Therefore, we would advise to be careful using small MPs as stratigraphic markers for the Anthropocene. Although analysing just one soil profile, this study highlights the role of biological activity and soil structure in MP translocation and emphasizes the need to account for small MPs in floodplain studies to avoid underestimating their environmental presence. Graphical Abstract