TY - JOUR A1 - Bartczak, Dorota A1 - Sikora, Aneta A1 - Goenaga-Infante, Heidi A1 - Altmann, Korinna A1 - Drexel, Roland A1 - Meier, Florian A1 - Alasonati, Enrica A1 - Lelong, Marc A1 - Cado, Florence A1 - Chivas-Joly, Carine A1 - Fadda, Marta A1 - Sacco, Alessio A1 - Rossi, Andrea Mario A1 - Pröfrock, Daniel A1 - Wippermann, Dominik A1 - Barbero, Francesco A1 - Fenoglio, Ivana A1 - Booth, Andy M. A1 - Sørensen, Lisbet A1 - Igartua, Amaia A1 - Wouters, Charlotte A1 - Mast, Jan A1 - Barbaresi, Marta A1 - Rossi, Francesca A1 - Piergiovanni, Maurizio A1 - Mattarozzi, Monica A1 - Careri, Maria A1 - Caebergs, Thierry A1 - Piette, Anne-Sophie A1 - Parot, Jeremie A1 - Giovannozzi, Andrea Mario T1 - Multiparameter characterisation of a nano-polypropylene representative test material with fractionation, light scattering, high-resolution microscopy, spectroscopy, and spectrometry methods N2 - Reference and quality control materials with comparable physicochemical properties to nanoplastic contaminants present in environmental and food nanoplastics are currently lacking. Here we report a nanoplastic polypropylene material prepared using a top-down approach involving mechanical fragmentation of larger plastics. The material was found to be homogeneous and stable in suspension and has been characterised for average particle size, size distribution range, particle number concentration, polypropylene mass fraction and inorganic impurity Content using a wide range of analytical methods, including AF4, cFFF, PTA, (MA)DLS, MALS, SEM, AFM, TEM, STEM, EDS,Raman, ICP-MS and pyGC-MS. The material was found to have a broad size distribution, ranging from 50 nm to over 200 nm, with the average particle size value dependent on the technique used to determine it. Particle number concentration ranged from 1.7–2.4 × 1010 g−1 , according to PTA. Spectroscopy techniques confirmed that the material was polypropylene, with evidence of aging due to an increased level of oxidation. The measured mass fraction was found to depend on the marker used and ranged between 3 and 5 μg g−1 . Inorganic impurities such as Si, Al, Mg, K, Na, S, Fe, Cl and Ca were also identified at ng g−1 levels. Comparability and complementarity across the measurement methods and techniques is also discussed. KW - Polypropylene KW - Nanoplastics KW - Analytics KW - Reference material KW - Scattering methods PY - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-654680 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/D5EN00917K SN - 2051-8153 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) AN - OPUS4-65468 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Putzu, Mara A1 - Wiesner, Yosri A1 - Weimann, Christiane A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Muniategui Lorenzo, Soledad A1 - Fernández-Gonzáles, Verónica A1 - Booth, Andy M. A1 - Igartua, Amaia A1 - Benismail, Nizar A1 - Coïc, Laureen A1 - Chivas-Joly, Carine A1 - Fenoglio, Ivana A1 - Rossi, Andrea Mario A1 - Giovannozzi, Andrea Mario A1 - Altmann, Korinna T1 - Optimization of tablet processing as a reference material for microplastic detection methods N2 - Reference materials (RMs) are essential and highly demanded tools for the development and validation of methods for microplastic (MP) quantification in complex matrices, to ensure comparable and harmonized approaches aligned with EU commission criteria for monitoring MPs (e.g., Drinking Water Directive and Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive). This study investigates different approaches for optimizing the production of polypropylene (PP) RMs in the form of water-soluble tablets, which were carefully evaluated for their homogeneity and stability according to ISO Guide 30, ISO 33401, and ISO 33405. PP particles (1–100 μm) were produced by cryomilling and embedded in a lactose/PEG matrix, then pressed into tablets (18 µg theoretical PP mass). The production process was optimized by varying (i) the size distribution of the matrix components and (ii) the mixer instrument. The materials obtained were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis to assess the homogeneity distribution of MPs with respect to PP mass in the individual tablets and their stability over a 4-month period. The most promising approach, with a homogenous mass of 19 μg (standard deviation of 4 μg), relative standard deviation of 19%, was further investigated for homogeneity by comparison with thermo-analytical mass determination methods, such as TED-GC/MS (thermal extraction desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry) and Py-GC/MS (pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry), and for number-based characterization using micro-Raman spectroscopy. Material characterization was also examined using laser diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and ATR-FTIR. Based on the results, the optimized processing protocol yields a PP RM suitable for quality control and method performance studies supporting standardization. KW - Microplastics KW - TED-GC/MS KW - Reference materials KW - Polypropylene PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-653290 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-025-06271-7 SN - 1618-2642 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-65329 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Alasonati, E A1 - Bartczak, D A1 - Altmann, Korinna A1 - Giovannozzi, A T1 - Towards Standardised Micro and Nanoplastics Analysis via Interlaboratory Comparisons: First Outlook of the VAMAS TWA 45 P3 Project N2 - This talk is part of the stakeholder workshop of the PlasticTrace project held in September 2025 in Oslo. The presentation shows first results of the VAMAS ILC on nanoplastics. PP nanoparticles were given to the participants. These were asked to measure the mass or particle number or size of the PP nanoplastics. Various techniques such as DLS, FFF, Py-GC/MS, TED-GC/MS, PTA were used. T2 - Stakeholder Workshop PlasticsTrace CY - Online meeting DA - 09.09.2025 KW - Nanoplastics KW - ILC KW - DLS KW - Polypropylene PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64714 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Altmann, Korinna A1 - Portela, Raquel A1 - Barbero, Francesco A1 - Breuninger, Esther A1 - Camassa, Laura Maria Azzurra A1 - Velickovic, Tanja Cirkovic A1 - Charitidis, Costas A1 - Costa, Anna A1 - Fadda, Marta A1 - Fengler, Petra A1 - Fenoglio, Ivana A1 - Giovannozzi, Andrea M. A1 - Haugen, Øyvind Pernell A1 - Kainourgios, Panagiotis A1 - von der Kammer, Frank A1 - Kirchner, Markus J. A1 - Lomax-Vogt, Madeleine A1 - Lujic, Tamara A1 - Milczewski, Frank A1 - Moussawi, Mhamad Aly A1 - Ortelli, Simona A1 - Parac-Vogt, Tatjana N. A1 - Potthoff, Annegret A1 - Jimenez Reinosa, Julian J. A1 - Röschter, Sophie A1 - Sacco, Alessio A1 - Wimmer, Lukas A1 - Zanoni, Ilaria A1 - Dailey, Lea Ann T1 - Characterizing nanoplastic suspensions of increasing complexity: inter-laboratory comparison of size measurements using dynamic light scattering N2 - Understanding the potential human health risks associated with micro- and nanoplastic exposure is currently a priority research area. Nanoplastic toxicity studies are complicated by the lack of available, well-characterized test and reference materials. Further, many nanoplastic test materials are inherently more polydisperse and heterogenous in shape compared to polystyrene beads, making accurate and representative size distribution measurements particularly challenging. The aim of this study was to conduct an inter-laboratory comparison of dynamic light scattering measurements, the most commonly used particle sizing method for nanomaterials. Using a published standard operating procedure, size measurements in water and a standardized cell culture medium (CCM) were generated for spherical, carboxy-functionalized polystyrene nanoparticles (PS-COOH; 50 nm; benchmark material), and for increasingly complex in-house produced spherical poly(ethylene terephthalate) (nanoPET) and irregular shaped polypropylene (nanoPP) test materials. The weighted mean of hydrodynamic diameters of PS-COOH dispersed in water (55 ± 5 nm) showed moderate variation between labs (coefficient of variation, CV = 8.2%) and were similar to literature reports. Measurements of nanoPET (82 ± 6 nm) and nanoPP (182 ± 12 nm) in water exhibited similar CV values (nanoPET: 7.3% and nanoPP; 6.8%). Dispersion of PS-COOH and nanoPET in CCM increased the CV to 15.1 and 14.2%, respectively, which is lower than literature reports (CV = 30%). We conclude with a series of practical recommendations for robust size measurements of nanoplastics in both water and complex media highlighting that strict adherence to a standard operating procedure is required to prevent particle agglomeration in CCM KW - Nanoplastics KW - Reference materials KW - Polypropylene PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-644571 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d5en00645g SN - 2051-8153 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) AN - OPUS4-64457 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ciornii, Dmitri T1 - Identification of toxicologically relevant functional groups on micro- and nanoplastic particles’ surface by means of X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy N2 - Microplastic and nanoplastic particles (MNP) are spread all over the world in various types, shapes and sizes making it very challenging to accurately analyse them. Each sampling procedure, sample preparation method and detection technique needs suitable reference materials to validate the method for accurate results. Furthermore, the effects of these MNPs should be evaluated by risk and hazard assessment with test particles close to reality. To better understand MNP behavior and aid in clarification of their interactions with organisms, we produced several MNP materials by top-down procedure and characterized their properties. Since surface properties mostly determine particles’ toxicity, the aim of the present study was to determine which functional groups are present on MNPs and how the surface can be affected by the production process and particle’s environment. T2 - SETAC 34th Meeting CY - Seville, Spain DA - 05.05.2024 KW - Microplastics KW - Nanoplastics KW - Polypropylene KW - XPS KW - SEM PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60037 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sanchez Olivares, G. A1 - Rockel, Daniel A1 - Calderas, F. A1 - Schartel, Bernhard T1 - Utilizing leather fibers from industrial wastes as bio-filler to improve flame retardancy in polypropylene N2 - Combining buffing leather fibers from industrial waste streams with ammonium polyphosphate and bentonite clay is proposed as a flame-retardant additive for polypropylene. The paper addresses how they can be processed into attractive composites with the desired mechanical properties. Buffing leather fibers function as a multifunctional bio-filler and as a synergist for the flame retardant, resulting in fire retardancy successful enough to increase the oxygen index (LOI) by up to 7 vol.-% and to achieve a V0 UL 94 classification. Impressively reduced heat release rates are obtained in the cone calorimeter at 50 kW/m2 irradiation; for instance, the maximum average rate heat evolved (MARHE) drops from 765 to below 200 kW m􀀀 2. The synergistic effects are quantified and shown to be very strong for LOI and MARHE. This work opens the door to use waste buffing leather fibers as a promising multifunctional and synergistic bio-filler. KW - Polypropylene KW - Flame retardancy KW - Industrial waste KW - Leather fibers KW - Bio-filler PY - 2024 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2023.11.008 SN - 1226-086X SN - 1876-794X VL - 132 SP - 148 EP - 160 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-59556 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Meurer, Maren T1 - Is olypropylene relevant for microplastic analytics? N2 - Nowadays, in every terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem, even in the remotest areas, small residues of plastics, the so called microplastic (MP) can be found. MPs are particles with a size of 1-1000 µm (ISO/TR 21960:2020), mainly containing synthetic polymers like polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Even styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) as an indication for tire wear is included due to similar particle formation. To understand the MPs consequences to the environment, it is of high priority to capture its extent of contamination. It is surprising that in the analysis of polymer masses in environmental samples, PE, PS and SBR are often detected, but only small amounts of PP, although this is the second most commonly produced standard plastic and many MP particles originate from carelessly disposed packaging materials. This presentation provides hypotheses about the reasons of rare PP identification and mass quantification in environmental samples. Different investigations of pristine PP and representative environmental samples, including the pre-treatment by Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE) or with density separation followed by the thermal extraction / desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS) are presented. The results are discussed according to the material properties and a possible degradation mechanism under different weathering conditions which indicate less stability under relevant storage conditions. T2 - Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry CY - Dublin, Ireland DA - 30.04.2023 KW - Sample preparation KW - Polypropylene KW - Microplastic KW - Degradation PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-57474 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Juds, Carmen A1 - Schmidt, J. A1 - Weller, Michael G. A1 - Lange, Thorid A1 - Beck, Uwe A1 - Conrad, T. A1 - Boerner, H. G. T1 - Combining phage display and next-generation sequencing for materials sciences: A case study on probing polypropylene surfaces N2 - Phage display biopanning with Illumina next-generation sequencing (NGS) is applied to reveal insights into peptide-based adhesion domains for polypropylene (PP). One biopanning round followed by NGS selects robust PP-binding peptides that are not evident by Sanger sequencing. NGS provides a significant statistical base that enables motif analysis, statistics on positional residue depletion/enrichment, and data analysis to suppress false-positive sequences from amplification bias. The selected sequences are employed as water-based primers for PP-metal adhesion to condition PP surfaces and increase adhesive strength by 100% relative to nonprimed PP. KW - Polymers KW - Polypropylene KW - Glue KW - Plastics KW - Surface Activation KW - Primer KW - Peptide Library KW - Epoxy KW - Solid-binding Peptides KW - Functionalization KW - Polymer-binding Peptides KW - Adhesion KW - Material-binding Peptides KW - Adhesives PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c03482 SN - 0002-7863 SN - 1520-5126 VL - 142 IS - 24 SP - 10624 EP - 10628 PB - ACS CY - Washington, DC, USA AN - OPUS4-51123 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Bärmann, F T1 - Degradation analysis of polypropylene in the presence of phosphorus and sulfur containing additives - TGA-FTIR N2 - Polyolefins as polypropylene are widely used in packaging, automotive, consumer goods, construction, infrastructure, agricultural film and other film and sheet applications. Due to their molecular structure, polyolefins inherently burn well. The wide and growing usage implements that fire retardancy of polyolefin products is necessary and gains more attention. Sulfurous additives with synergistic flame retarding effects were shown in polymers like polystyrene and polyolefins by Bellin et al. and Fuchs et al. earlier. For polystyrene compounds, Braun et al. revealed that thermal degradation in the presence of phosphorus and sulfurous additives changes massively. The total release, the composition, and the onset temperature of evolved decomposition products changes. For polypropylene, mixtures containing triphenyl phosphate (TPP), sulfur (S8) and poly(tertbutylphenol) disulphide (PBDS) (Table 1) were prepared and investigated via thermogravimetric analysis coupled to Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (TGA-FTIR). T2 - FRPM 2019 CY - Turku, Finland DA - 26.06.2019 KW - TGA-FTIR KW - Polypropylene KW - Phosphorus KW - Sulfur PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49391 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yin, Huajie A1 - Sypaseuth, Fanni D. A1 - Schubert, M. A1 - Schoch, R. A1 - Bastian, M. A1 - Schartel, Bernhard T1 - Routes to halogen‐free flame‐retardant polypropylene wood plastic composites N2 - Developing halogen‐free flame retardants with reasonably high efficiency, which thus function at limited loadings in polypropylene‐based wood/plastic composites (WPC), is still a challenge. Cost‐effective flame‐retarded WPC have been identified as a way to open the door to an interesting, broader spectrum of application in the building and transportation sectors. This work imparts a systematic comprehensive understanding and assessment of different basic routes to halogen‐free flame‐retarded WPC, taking into account economic and environmental considerations. Cheap, halogen‐free single‐component flame retardants and their multicomponent systems are investigated at reasonable filling grades of 20 wt%. The basic routes of promising synergistic multicomponent systems are discussed, and their potential and Limits assessed. Optimizing the consistency of fire residue; closing the surface of inorganic‐organic residual layers; the thermal stabilization and design of the residue, eg, synergistic combination of ammonium polyphosphate and expandable graphite; and the combination of different flame‐retardant mechanisms, eg, intumescence and flame inhibition, are proposed as promising routes to boost the flame‐retardant efficiency. KW - Flammability KW - Halogen‐free KW - Multicomponent systems KW - Polypropylene KW - Wood plastic composite (WPC) PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/pat.4458 SN - 1099-1581 SN - 1042-7147 VL - 30 IS - 1 SP - 187 EP - 202 PB - Wiley AN - OPUS4-46909 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -