TY - CONF A1 - Hildebrandt, Jana A1 - Thünemann, Andreas T1 - Aqueous dispersions of polypropylene: towards referencematerials for nanoplastics characterization N2 - Plastic pollution in the environment is a rising concern for the health of our planet. The plastic litter that pollutes our environment leads to microplastic particles. They can be found (nearly) everywhere. The processes that lead to microplastic can also form nanoplastic particles, which have a size below 1 µm. Because of the small size they can penetrate tissue more easily. Only few risk assessment studies of nanoplastics were carried out so far. Using polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles to test effects on organisms is easy because it is commercially available. However, this falls a little short, as the polyolefins i.e., polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), are produced in a larger proportion than PS. Moreover, these plastics are mainly used for disposable products, which means that they also account for a large proportion of plastic waste. Therefore, the percentage of polyolefins in environmental nanoplastic is presumably high. It is important to test the toxicological effects also with nanoplastics made of PP and PE to have more realistic results. Herein, we present an easy and repeatable method to prepare an aqueous dispersion of polypropylene nanoplastics (nano-PP). They are stabilized electrostatically, resulting in a strongly negative zeta potential of -43 mV (± 2 mV) and making no surfactant necessary to keep the dispersion stable. The size and the size distribution were determined via Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and gives a hydrodynamic diameter of 180.5 nm (± 5.8 nm) and a PDI of 0.084 (± 0.023). Finally, ca. 480 bottles of the dispersion with a volume of 10 mL each were prepared to serve as a potential reference material for further testing of detection methods or risk assessments. T2 - International Conference on Microplastic Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea CY - Neapel, Italy DA - 25.09.2022 KW - Nanoplastic PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-55963 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -