On the Identification of Rayon/Viscose as a Major Fraction of Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Discrimination between Natural and Manmade Cellulosic Fibers Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

• Published in: Applied spectroscopy Vol. 71; no. 5; pp. 939 - 950
• Main Authors: Comnea-Stancu, Ionela Raluca, Wieland, Karin, Ramer, Georg, Schwaighofer, Andreas, Lendl, Bernhard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.05.2017
• Subjects: Cellulose - analysis; Cellulose - chemistry; Cluster Analysis; Microscopy; Plastics - analysis; Plastics - chemistry; Principal Component Analysis; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared - methods; Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis; Water Pollutants, Chemical - chemistry; hierarchical cluster analysis; viscose fibers; attenuated total reflection; Manmade cellulose fibers; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; microscopy; natural fibers; rayon; principal component analysis

This work was sparked by the reported identification of man-made cellulosic fibers (rayon/viscose) in the marine environment as a major fraction of plastic litter by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) transmission spectroscopy and library search. To assess the plausibility of such findings, both nat...