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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 22: Poster Session III - Charged Soft Matter and Theory and Simulation

CPP 22.4: Poster

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 16:30–18:30, CPPp

Investigating the surface charge of microplastic particles with Colloidal Probe-Atomic Force Microscopy — •Thomas Witzmann and Andreas Fery — Leibniz-Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Germany

To date, plastic particles have mainly been categorized by polymer type, shape, and size. But there is another important issue arising when investigating microplastic and its interaction with cells. With decreasing size, the surface-volume ratio increases which makes surface properties more important to consider. It is generally believed that the surface properties of the particles influence the cell interaction. Therefore, we investigated un-functionalized polystyrene particles with the size of 3 micrometer with different surface properties of two different manufactures. We found out that the cellular interaction and uptake of microplastic particles (polystyrene) differs for the two particle types. Using Colloidal Probe-Atomic Force Microscopy (CP-AFM) we could show a significant difference in the electric surface properties: homogeneously charged particles vs. heterogeneously charged particles. The heterogeneous surface charge manifests itself in an electrostatic interaction of the particles that depends on the mutual orientation of the particles. CP-AFM is therefore a magnificent tool to obtain additional information*s about surface charge and its distribution on microplastic particles.