People of all ages consume salt every day, but is it really just salt? Plastic nanoparticles [nanoplastics (NPs)] pose an increasing environmental threat and have begun to contaminate everyday salt in consumer goods. Herein, we developed a combined surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) approach that can realize the filtration, enrichment, and detection of NPs in commercial salt. The Au-loaded (50 nm) anodic alumina oxide substrate was used as the SERS substrate to explore the potential types of NP contaminants in salts. SRS was used to conduct imaging and quantify the presence of the NPs. SRS detection was successfully established through standard plastics, and NPs were identified through the match of the hydrocarbon group of the nanoparticles. Simultaneously, the NPs were quantified based on the high spatial resolution and rapid imaging of the SRS imaging platform. NPs in sea salts produced in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Atlantic were studied. We estimate that, depending on the location, an average person could be ingesting as many as 6 million NPs per year through the consumption of sea salt alone. The potential health hazards associated with NP ingestion should not be underestimated.

中文翻译：

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在商业海盐中检测到纳米塑料


各个年龄段的人每天都会吃盐，但盐真的只是盐吗？塑料纳米粒子 [纳米塑料 (NP)] 造成的环境威胁日益严重，并已开始污染消费品中的日常盐。在此，我们开发了一种表面增强拉曼散射（SERS）和受激拉曼散射（SRS）相结合的方法，可以实现商业盐中纳米颗粒的过滤、富集和检测。使用载金 (50 nm) 阳极氧化铝基板作为 SERS 基板来探索盐中纳米颗粒污染物的潜在类型。 SRS 用于进行成像并量化 NP 的存在。通过标准塑料成功建立了SRS检测，并通过纳米颗粒的烃基匹配来鉴定纳米颗粒。同时，基于SRS成像平台的高空间分辨率和快速成像，对NP进行了定量。对亚洲、澳大利亚、欧洲和大西洋生产的海盐中的纳米颗粒进行了研究。我们估计，根据地点的不同，平均每个人每年仅通过食用海盐就可能摄入多达 600 万个纳米颗粒。不应低估与摄入 NP 相关的潜在健康危害。