title: FTIR spectroscopy supported by statistical techniques for the structural characterization of plastic debris in the marine environment: Application to monitoring studies.
abstract: We inserted 190 FTIR spectra of plastic samples in a digital database and submitted it to Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to extract the "pure" plastic polymers present. These identified plastics were polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), high density polyethylene terephthalate (HDPET), low density polyethylene terephthalate (LDPET), polystyrene (PS), Nylon (NL), polyethylene oxide (OPE), and Teflon (TEF) and they were used to establish the similarity with unknown plastics using the correlation coefficient (r), and the crosscorrelation function (CC). For samples with r<0.8 we determined the Mahalanobis Distance (MD) as additional tool of identification. For instance, for the four plastic fragments found in the Carretta carretta, one plastic sample was assigned to OPE due to its r=0.87; for all the other three plastic samples, due to the r values ranging between 0.83 and0.70, the support of MD suggested LDPET and OPE as co-polymer constituents.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Chemometrics and Environmental Applications, ISPRA, Via di Castel Romano 100, 00128 Rome, Italy. Electronic address: mauro.mecozzi@isprambiente.it.
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mecozzi
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Chemometrics and Environmental Applications, ISPRA, Via di Castel Romano 100, 00128 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pietroletti
authors.affiliation: Spectral Service AG, Emil-Hoffmann-Straße 33, 50996 Cologne, Germany; Institute of Chemistry, Saratov State University, Astrakhanskaya Street 83, 410012 Saratov, Russia.
authors.forename: Yulia B
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Monakhova
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D010969:Plastics / Q000032:analysis*; D020959:Polyethylene; D011108:Polymers; D011137:Polystyrenes / Q000032:analysis; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D014866:Waste Products / Q000032:analysis*; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D010969:Plastics; D011108:Polymers; D011137:Polystyrenes; D014866:Waste Products; D014873:Water Pollutants; D020959:Polyethylene
keywords: Correlation coefficient; FTIR spectroscopy; Independent component analysis; Mahalanobis distance; Plastic debris; Spectral library