Assessing the efficacy of pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for nanoplastic and microplastic analysis in human blood
Rauert C, Charlton N, Bagley A, Dunlop SA, Symeonides C, Thomas KV (2025). Environmental Science & Technology.
What they found
Tested whether pyrolysis-GC/MS can reliably measure plastic in human blood. Blood produced false polyethylene and PVC signals; a new extraction reduced but did not remove the polyethylene interference, realistic detection limits were up to 20 times higher than in clean water, and in the pilot no other polymer exceeded detection limits. The authors conclude the method is currently not suitable for PE and PVC in biological samples.
- Sample
- Method validation plus a pilot of Australian blood samples
- What it can't tell you
- One lab's protocol and a small pilot; better clean-up methods may solve the interference. Extraction recoveries varied widely (7–109%). It does not show that earlier detections were wrong, only that PE and PVC readings by this method are unreliable.
- Funding
- Minderoo Foundation
- Topics
- In the body, Methods
- Checked against
- Abstract (Europe PMC, PMID 39851066, PMC11800385); funder via Crossref