From: Microplastics in food: scoping review on health effects, occurrence, and human exposure
Type of product | Type of polymer | N/Np | Size range (μm) | Analytical method | Microplastic content (particles/kg)a | Sample origin | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Commercial salts, rock salt, lab-grade, and raw salt | PE, PP, PU, PET, PVC, and others, totalling 23 polymer types | 24/24 | 65-2500 | Stereo microscope+FTIR | 11-193 (commercial) 64 (rock) | Shi Lanka | (Kapukotuwa et al. 2022) |
Sea salts | PP, PE, and polyvinyl acetate | 23/23 | 3.3–4460 | Optical microscope +SEM-EDX | 0.67 ± 1.15-3.42 ± 4.94 | Africa | (Fadare et al. 2021) |
Sea salts | PET, PVC, PE, PS, PA, PP | 11/11 | 10–150 | Microscopy+Micro FTIR | 170–320 (Italy) 70-200 (Croatia) | Italy and Croatia | (Renzi et al. 2019) |
Sea and rock salts | Anthropogenic debrisb | 12/12 | 100-5000 | Stereo microscope | 46.7 -806 | Global | (Kosuth et al. 2018) |
Sea, lake, and rock salts | PE, PP, PET, PU, PVC, PA | 16/16 | 20-5000 | Micro-Raman spectroscopy | 16–84 (sea salt) 8–102 (lake salt) 9–16 (rock salt) | Turkey | (Gündoğdu 2018) |
Sea salts | PE, PS, PET, PA, polyester | 8/8 | < 500-5000 | Digital microscope+FTIR | 56 ± 49-103 ± 39 | India | (Seth and Shriwastav 2018) |
Sea, lake, and rock salts | PE, PP, PET | 39/nr | 100-5000 | Stereo microscope +FTIR | 0–1674 (sea salts)c 0–148 (rock salts) 28–462 (lake salts) | Global | (Kim et al. 2018) |
Table salts | PE, PP, PET, PS, polyacrylonitrile, PA | 17/15 | 160-980 | Stereo microscope +Raman spectroscopy | 0-10 | Global | (Karami et al. 2017) |
Sea and well salts | PET, PE, PP | 21/21 | 30 -3500 | Stereo microscope +FTIR | 115-185 (well salts) 50-280 (sea salts) | Spain | (Iñiguez et al. 2017) |
Refined and powdered sugar, unrefined cane sugar | Coloured fibres and fragments | 6/6 | 10-9000 | Stereo microscope | 217 ± 123 (fibres) 32 ± 7 (fragments) 1100 (total fibres and fragments for cane sugar sample) | Germany | (Liebezeit and Liebezeit 2013) |