The capabilities to monitor for the presence of microplastics in aquaculture in view of evaluating sources and protecting the industry from potential negative impacts reside in the implementation of methods which can be implemented at large scale. Comparability of results across studies is a necessity but is proven is difficult because different methods are used globally, and the focus of published studies often differ.
We used a combination of FTIR-ATR and microFTIR to evaluate the presence of microplastic potentially impacting aquaculture productions. To ensure comparability of our results with other published studies we made use of the freeware siMPle which is implemented in large number of organizations worldwide and allows to speed up the time spent for image analysis. We validated the development of our methods and include an evaluation of the recovery rates of microplastics through the process of density separation using NaCl and polytungstate and oxidation using H2O2 in view of preparing samples for microFTIR analysis.