TY - JOUR A1 - Wesch, Ch. A1 - Elert, Anna Maria A1 - Wörner, M. A1 - Braun, Ulrike A1 - Klein, R. A1 - Paulus, M. T1 - Assuring quality in microplastic monitoring: About the value of clean-air devices as essentials for verified data T2 - Scientific Reports N2 - Avoiding aerial microfibre contamination of environmental samples is essential for reliable analyses when it comes to the detection of ubiquitous microplastics. Almost all laboratories have contamination problems which are largely unavoidable without investments in clean-air devices. Therefore, our study supplies an approach to assess background microfibre contamination of samples in the laboratory under particle-free air conditions. We tested aerial contamination of samples indoor, in a mobile laboratory, within a laboratory fume hood and on a clean bench with particles filtration during the examining process of a fish. The used clean bench reduced aerial microfibre contamination in our laboratory by 96.5%. This highlights the value of suitable clean-air devices for valid microplastic pollution data. Our results indicate, that pollution levels by microfibres have been overestimated and actual pollution levels may be many times lower. Accordingly, such clean-air devices are recommended for microplastic laboratory applications in future research work to significantly lower error rate PB - Nature KW - Microplastics KW - FTIR KW - Quality KW - Environmental Science KW - Biological techniques PY - 2017 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/41240 AN - OPUS4-41240 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-412402 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 7 SP - Article 5424, 1 EP - 8 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany