Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

Recently, according to a professional academic magazine, scientists have discovered the chemical bond between plastic and rock for the first time in the natural environment, and this is the first time that plastic-rock complex has been found in the freshwater environment.

Wen Jing | Wen Jing

The chemical bond between plastic and rock was first found in the natural environment, according to an article published in Environmental Science & Technology magazine. Scientists have discovered the chemical bond between plastic and rock in the natural environment for the first time.

The team found some rocks wrapped in plastic film near a stream in Hechi, Guangxi. The results of spectral analysis show that the carbon atoms on the surface of polyethylene films chemically combine with silicon in rocks with the help of oxygen atoms.

Hou Deyi, author of the article and a soil and groundwater scientist at Tsinghua University in China, said the combination may be driven by ultraviolet light or by the metabolic activity of the microbial community on "plastiglomerates" (also known as plastic clastic rock).

In addition, the study found that the polypropylene film seems to be attached to the rock through physical action rather than chemical bonds. This indicates that there may be compaction similar to that in the diagenetic process in the process of combination of the two.

Gerson Fernandino, a Brazilian earth scientist, laments that although it is not clear whether the plastic-rock complex really represents a new interaction between plastic and rock, it is a new discovery in freshwater ecosystems. Because most other studies have looked at how plastics interact with matter in landfills, oceans or coastal environments.

The formation process of plastic clastic rock strata (photo source: Wikipedia) the impact of "plastic rocks" on the environment Hou Deyi said that people in the 20th and 21st centuries are creating new geological records.

In addition to affecting the geological characteristics of the earth, "plastic rocks" also release microplastics into the environment. These plastic fragments can be transported over long distances in the atmosphere and ocean, can seep into plant tissue, and may be used as food by animals such as fish and birds.

To see how much microplastic would fall off the rock, Hou Deyi and his colleagues separated some of the plastic sheets and exposed them to the dry-wet cycle in the laboratory to simulate what might happen when the stream rose periodically.

The results show that the microplastic formation rate simulated in this study is several orders of magnitude higher than that of previously simulated landfills, seawater and marine sediments.

More data may be needed to support the results of this study, but this study will provide new ideas for us to assess the impact of microplastics on freshwater resources.

(photo Source: Pexels) since the end of the Holocene, since the middle of the 20th century, human activities have profoundly changed the geological conditions of the earth, including the burning of fossil fuels, the use of radioactive materials, and the use of chemical products such as plastics. Therefore, geologists have put forward the concept of "Anthropocene", but the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the definition of this concept.

The Anthropocene working Group, composed of scientists from the International Commission on Stratigraphy, based on industrial and radioactive materials found on Earth, vote on which location on Earth marks the beginning of the Anthropocene (candidate sites include Longwan Lake in the four Seas in Jilin Province, China), the results will be announced in the near future. At the same time, the decision marks the end of the Holocene (Holocene), which has a history of about 12, 000 years.

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