From the journal Environmental Science: Atmospheres Peer review history

07-Jun-2022

Dear Dr Luo:

Manuscript ID: EA-CRV-04-2022-000041
TITLE: Ecological and human health risks of atmospheric microplastics(MPs): a review

Thank you for your submission to Environmental Science: Atmospheres, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I sent your manuscript to reviewers and I have now received their reports which are copied below.

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Associate Editor, Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres

************

Reviewer 1

General Comment: This review critically analyzes the existing literature regarding the fate and risks of microplastics (MPs) within atmospheric environment. Generally, the authors "collect stamps" on the characteristics and environmental fate of microplasitcs in the atmosphere, and these sections are similar to those reported in other review papers. The authors then concerned on the ecological and human health risks of MPs, and the reviewer believes that additional text addressing those concerns and challenges would be more helpful. The topic is timely, and provides some important insights to our existing knowledge, and more importantly, knowledge gaps with regarding to MPs in the environments. The survey of the existing literature is comprehensive and manuscript is well written and logically presented. The paper can be accepted after addressing the following comments.

1. The review is comprehensive with regard to the existing literature (especially Section 1 and 2) but as noted above, the reviewer found that most data were presented similar to those of other reviews without the author’s own views. For example, are the MP size and concentrations comparable to those of inorganic aerosol particles?

2. The authors discussed in details the ecological consequences of MP exposure (Section 3). This section contains an excessive number of terms referring to "effects", and what does the term "effect" really mean? Positive or negative? Are you able to elicit some critical data or comparisons from the literature regarding inorganic aerosol particle exposure?

3. The authors defined MPs as synthetic polymers with diameters less than 5 mm. How about the effects of the nanoplastics (< 100 nm)? Are they of priority to be concerned?

4. The section about gap knowledge is good, but I think more text on solutions is needed throughout the review at the end of each section or even subsection. After presenting a topic, conclude with a paragraph on what was done well, what was done poorly, what needs to be done and how should we do it.

Specific comment:
1. Introduction. Add a few 2020-2022 papers here.
2. MPs in the atmosphere. Some papers have documented the method for identifying nano-sized plastics (e.g., Zhou et al., 2019).
3. Chemical compositions of atmospheric MPs. The MPs could co-existed with other pollutants (e.g., metals, organic matters).
4. Chemical compositions of atmospheric MPs. Is it possible to apply the methods used to identify MPs in aquatic and terrestrial environments to atmospheric environments?
5. Fate of atmospheric MPs. The chemical behaviors of atmospheric MPs, including weathering processes, interaction of MPs with co-existing pollutants, are almost completely ignored. These behaviors will have a dramatic impact on MP fate and exposure scenario.
6. Ecological risks of atmospheric MPs. This section is comprehensive with regard to the existing literature, but the key information is vague. I suggest that the sensitive ecological indicators upon MP exposure could be concluded. Moreover, were any inferences drawn from the research on inorganic aerosol particles? If possible, draw comparable information on the impacts of inorganic aerosol particles on ecology from literature.
7. Conclusion and perspective. The content of development of technologies and instruments is merely. More specifics needed.
8. Figure 4 and 5 can be merged.

Reviewer 2

Manuscript title: Ecological and human health risks of atmospheric microplastics (MPs): a review

Manuscript number: EA-CRV-04-2022-000041

The review reported the sources, transports of microplastics in atmospheric environments, and their way of entry and toxicological effects in human. After a careful review, I recommend the authors to address the following comments.



Comments:



Ø Write more detail in the introduction (add points - formation of microplastics and toxicological effects in organisms and their transports way in ecosystem)

Ø Add some point about formation of microplastics in “definition of microplastics”

Ø Rephrase definition of primary and secondary microplastics (need some clarification). Refer the following article

Jeyavani, J., Sibiya, A., Shanthini, S., Ravi, C., Vijayakumar, S., Rajan, D. K., & Vaseeharan, B. (2021). A review on aquatic impacts of microplastics and its bioremediation aspects. Current Pollution Reports, 7(3), 286-299.

Jeyavani, J., Sibiya, A., Bhavaniramya, S., Mahboob, S., Al-Ghanim, K. A., Nisa, Z. U., ... & Vaseeharan, B. (2022). Toxicity evaluation of polypropylene microplastic on marine microcrustacean Artemia salina: An analysis of implications and vulnerability. Chemosphere, 296, 133990.

Ø Under this subtitle “MP in atmosphere” write the notes related to this topic. Why did you added the microplastic analytic technique here

Ø Remove or rephrase the unnecessary topic included in this review. This is not suitable and kindly remove it (microplastics effects in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem)

Ø Author may add some points regarding the toxicological mechanisms of microplastics in health issues.

Refer the following some articles

Prata, J. C. (2018). Airborne microplastics: consequences to human health?. Environmental pollution, 234, 115-126.

Wang, Y., Huang, J., Zhu, F., & Zhou, S. (2021). Airborne microplastics: A review on the occurrence, migration and risks to humans. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 107(4), 657-664.

Ø Add some future perceptive points to reduce the airborne microplastics in the globe.

Reviewers' Comments, Author’s Replies, and Revisions in the Text
Manuscript ID: EA-CRV-04-2022-000041
Title: Ecological and human health risks of atmospheric microplastics (MPs): a review
Authors: Xuewen Yao, Xiao-San Luo*, Jiayi Fan, Tingting Zhang, Hanhan Li, Yaqian Wei

Dear editor Dr. Prisle and dear reviewers,
We are very grateful to you for your critical comments and helpful suggestions. Your detailed advices have enabled us to improve our work. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications and improvements to the original manuscript. The changes are shown in the marked copy with track changes. The point-to-point replies, explanations, and clarifications for all of the revisions are listed below for easy reference. We have also checked all the formats and reference styles of the overall manuscript again.
We hope the revised manuscript can be published in Environmental Science: Atmospheres after these important modifications and significant improvements.

Responses to Reviewers’ Comments:
Reviewer #1:
Overall:
This review critically analyzes the existing literature regarding the fate and risks of microplastics (MPs) within atmospheric environment. Generally, the authors "collect stamps" on the characteristics and environmental fate of microplasitcs in the atmosphere, and these sections are similar to those reported in other review papers. The authors then concerned on the ecological and human health risks of MPs, and the reviewer believes that additional text addressing those concerns and challenges would be more helpful. The topic is timely, and provides some important insights to our existing knowledge, and more importantly, knowledge gaps with regarding to MPs in the environments. The survey of the existing literature is comprehensive and manuscript is well written and logically presented. The paper can be accepted after addressing the following comments.
Reply and revision:
We appreciate your kindly evaluations and suggestions for our manuscript very much. We strongly agree with most of them, and the manuscript has been revised and improved thoroughly according to your helpful advices. The point-to-point replies, explanations, and clarifications for all revisions are listed below for easy reference.

For specific comments
1. Introduction. Add a few 2020-2022 papers here.
Reply and revision:
Thanks for your suggestions. We read more newly published studies and improved the introduction. We enriched the introduction by adding the movement of microplastics in different media environments, and the toxicological effects on organisms. More details were reflected in the revised manuscript.

2. MPs in the atmosphere. Some papers have documented the method for identifying nano-sized plastics (e.g., Zhou et al., 2019).
Reply and revision:
Thank you for the suggestion. Based on your comments, we have added some descriptions to section 2 of the revised manuscript, further discussing methods for identifying and quantifying nanoplastics. More details are reflected in the revised manuscript.

3. Chemical compositions of atmospheric MPs. The MPs could co-existed with other pollutants (e.g., metals, organic matters).
Reply and revision:
Thanks very much for your suggestion, which provided us with a new way of thinking about analyzing the chemical composition of atmospheric microplastics. Understanding the coexistence of different types of atmospheric microplastics with other pollutants is valuable for a thorough and comprehensive investigation. But when we investigate studies on the composition of atmospheric microplastics, the characteristics of high molecular weight polymers are stated. In our section on ecological and human health risks posed by atmospheric microplastics, the harm caused by the coexistence of microplastics with other pollutants is presented.

4. Chemical compositions of atmospheric MPs. Is it possible to apply the methods used to identify MPs in aquatic and terrestrial environments to atmospheric environments?
Reply and revision:
Thanks for the reminding and sorry for the confusion caused by the lack of information. By sorting out the published literature, the methods currently used to analyze and measure atmospheric microplastics are mainly visual methods, spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. We have not found significant differences in the methods of identifying microplastics in different environmental media. When obtaining microplastics in different environmental media, there are obvious differences in the steps of separation and purification.

5. Fate of atmospheric MPs. The chemical behaviors of atmospheric MPs, including weathering processes, interaction of MPs with co-existing pollutants, are almost completely ignored. These behaviors will have a dramatic impact on MP fate and exposure scenario.
Reply and revision:
Thanks for the reminder, and apologizes for our lack of consideration. Based on your comments, we've added some descriptions to the Fate of atmospheric MPs section. More details are reflected in the revised manuscript.

6. Ecological risks of atmospheric MPs. This section is comprehensive with regard to the existing literature, but the key information is vague. I suggest that the sensitive ecological indicators upon MP exposure could be concluded. Moreover, were any inferences drawn from the research on inorganic aerosol particles? If possible, draw comparable information on the impacts of inorganic aerosol particles on ecology from literature.
Reply and revision:
Thanks for your meaningful suggestion, according to your reminder, we have added content about sensitive ecological indicators after exposure to microplastics. More details were shown in the revised manuscript.

7. Conclusion and perspective. The content of development of technologies and instruments is merely. More specifics needed.
Reply and revision:
Thanks for your thoughtful advice. We've added more detail to the "Conclusions and perspective" section than just a perspective for technology and instrumentation. More details were reflected in the revised manuscript.

8. Figure 4 and 5 can be merged.
Reply and revision:
We appreciate this nice suggestion. We considered merging Figures 4 and 5, so we produced a summary of the figures. When describing the transport of atmospheric microplastics and the ecological and human health risks caused by atmospheric microplastics, we hope that more details will be noted. So we hope to show this part of the figures separately.


Reviewer #2
Overall:
The review reported the sources, transports of microplastics in atmospheric environments, and their way of entry and toxicological effects in human. After a careful review, I recommend the authors to address the following comments.
Reply and revision:
We appreciate you very much for your kindly evaluations and detailed comments on our manuscript. The manuscript has been revised thoroughly according to your following comments. The point-to-point replies, explanations, and clarifications for all revisions are addressed below for easy reference.

1. Write more detail in the introduction (add points - formation of microplastics and toxicological effects in organisms and their transports way in ecosystem)
Reply and revision:
Thanks for your nice suggestion, and then we have improved the introduction. We have added more information on the transport of microplastics in ecosystems and their toxic effects on organisms in the Introduction. In order to make the introduction more detailed and not duplicate content throughout the article, we have added more information on the formation of microplastics in "Definition of microplastics". More details were reflected in the revised manuscript.

2. Add some point about formation of microplastics in “definition of microplastics”
Reply and revision:
Thank you very much for this suggestion, and we also agree that some points about formation of microplastics need to be added. According to the classification of primary plastics and secondary plastics, we separately elaborated the points of their formation.

3. Rephrase definition of primary and secondary microplastics (need some clarification). Refer the following article:
(Jeyavani, J., Sibiya, A., Shanthini, S., Ravi, C., Vijayakumar, S., Rajan, D. K., & Vaseeharan, B. (2021). A review on aquatic impacts of microplastics and its bioremediation aspects. Current Pollution Reports, 7(3), 286-299.
Jeyavani, J., Sibiya, A., Bhavaniramya, S., Mahboob, S., Al-Ghanim, K. A., Nisa, Z. U., ... & Vaseeharan, B. (2022). Toxicity evaluation of polypropylene microplastic on marine microcrustacean Artemia salina: An analysis of implications and vulnerability. Chemosphere, 296, 133990.)
Reply and revision:
Thanks for the suggestion. We carefully read your recommended articles and newly published research. As for the definition of primary and secondary microplastics, we revised and clarified this part with more rigorous expressions in the revised manuscript. Thank you for your careful reminding.

4. Under this subtitle “MP in atmosphere” write the notes related to this topic. Why did you added the microplastic analytic technique here
Reply and revision:
Thank you for this reminder. After careful thought, we agreed that it would not be appropriate to write about techniques for atmospheric microplastic analysis under "MPs in the atmosphere". However, pointing out the current status of atmospheric microplastics collection and analysis technology would help to analyze the chemical composition of atmospheric microplastics later. Therefore, we have kept the content of this section by re-adding a subtitle to this section. Hopefully, the layout of our revised manuscript will be more logical.

5. Remove or rephrase the unnecessary topic included in this review. This is not suitable and kindly remove it (microplastics effects in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem)
Reply and revision:
We are very grateful for your critical comments on our manuscript. Through the analysis of the transport and fate of atmospheric microplastics, the driving forces for the movement of atmospheric microplastics are transport, diffusion and deposition mechanisms. Numerous studies have shown that a large amount of microplastics in the atmosphere enter aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems mainly through dry and wet deposition. Microplastics can move in environments with different media. It is valuable to distinguish between microplastics that enter aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems from the atmosphere and those that are native to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In practice, however, it is currently difficult to account for the ecological risks posed by microplastics entering other ecosystems from the atmosphere.
Based on the physical and chemical characteristics of atmospheric microplastics, we infer the ecological risks caused by atmospheric microplastics based on the paths of atmospheric microplastics into other ecosystems.
Understanding the risks to ecosystems posed by microplastics from atmospheric deposition is of great scientific interest, but research on this part is currently lacking. Of course, we are very willing to carry out this part of the more in-depth and detailed work in the follow-up research. We retain the impact of atmospheric microplastics on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and we also hope to draw attention to the ecological risks caused by atmospheric microplastics through this review. We agree with your criticism of this part of our content, so the revised manuscript had been added to highlight the insufficiency of this part of the research, and the outlook for the research on the ecological risk of atmospheric microplastics was proposed.

6. Author may add some points regarding the toxicological mechanisms of microplastics in health issues.
Refer the following some articles:
(Prata, J. C. (2018). Airborne microplastics: consequences to human health?. Environmental pollution, 234, 115-126.
Wang, Y., Huang, J., Zhu, F., & Zhou, S. (2021). Airborne microplastics: A review on the occurrence, migration and risks to humans. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 107(4), 657-664.)
Reply and revision:
Thanks very much for these very important articles. Make up for our forgetfulness of this part of knowledge. Specific views on the toxicological mechanisms of microplastics in health problems are added in the manuscript.

7. Add some future perceptive points to reduce the airborne microplastics in the globe.
Reply and revision:
Thanks for your thoughtful suggestion. According to your reminder, in the perspective section, we focus more on the pollution caused by atmospheric microplastics, and what research needs to be focused on in the future to reduce atmospheric microplastics. More details were presented in the revised manuscript.

29-Jul-2022

Dear Dr Luo:

Manuscript ID: EA-CRV-04-2022-000041.R1
TITLE: Ecological and human health risks of atmospheric microplastics(MPs): a review

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Reviewer 2

All corrections are made