近日，荷兰乌得勒支大学Dušan Materic团队研究了北大西洋的纳米塑料浓度。2025年7月9日出版的《自然》杂志发表了这项成果。

海洋领域的塑料污染是普遍存在的，大多数科学家关注的是宏观塑料和微塑料。相比之下，海洋纳米塑料（<1 μm）在很大程度上仍未被量化，这使得他们对这种塑料尺寸的质量预算的理解存在差距。

研究组沿着横跨北大西洋从亚热带环流到北欧大陆架的横断面测量了海洋盆地尺度上的纳米塑料浓度。他们发现大约1.5-32.0 mg/m³ 聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）、聚苯乙烯（PS）和聚氯乙烯（PVC）纳米塑料遍布整个水柱。平均而言，研究组观察到混合层中纳米塑料的浓度比中等水深高1.4倍，其中欧洲大陆附近的混合层纳米塑料浓度最高。亚热带环流中中等水深的纳米塑料浓度是环流外北大西洋开放海域的1.8倍，纳米塑料浓度最低，约为5.5毫克/立方米。

这3种主要由PET组成，存在于底层水域。对于温带至亚热带北大西洋的混合层，研究小组估计纳米塑料的质量可能达到2700万吨（Mt）。这与之前对整个大西洋或全球海洋的宏观塑料/微塑料的预算估计相同或超过。该发现表明，纳米塑料构成了海洋塑料污染的主要部分。

附：英文原文

Title: Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic

Author: ten Hietbrink, Sophie, Materi, Duan, Holzinger, Rupert, Groeskamp, Sjoerd, Niemann, Helge

Issue&Volume: 2025-07-09

Abstract: Plastic pollution of the marine realm is widespread, with most scientific attention given to macroplastics and microplastics1,2. By contrast, ocean nanoplastics (<1μm) remain largely unquantified, leaving gaps in our understanding of the mass budget of this plastic size class3,4,5. Here we measure nanoplastic concentrations on an ocean-basin scale along a transect crossing the North Atlantic from the subtropical gyre to the northern European shelf. We find approximately 1.5–32.0mgm3 of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) nanoplastics throughout the entire water column. On average, we observe a 1.4-fold higher concentration of nanoplastics in the mixed layer when compared with intermediate water depth, with highest mixed-layer nanoplastic concentrations near the European continent. Nanoplastic concentrations at intermediate water depth are 1.8-fold higher in the subtropical gyre compared with the open North Atlantic outside the gyre. The lowest nanoplastic concentrations, with about 5.5mgm3 on average and predominantly composed of PET, are present in bottom waters. For the mixed layer of the temperate to subtropical North Atlantic, we estimate that the mass of nanoplastic may amount to 27 million tonnes (Mt). This is in the same range or exceeding previous budget estimates of macroplastics/microplastics for the entire Atlantic6,7 or the global ocean1,8. Our findings suggest that nanoplastics comprise the dominant fraction of marine plastic pollution.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09218-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09218-1