Topic: Micro(nano)plastics in the Environment: Microbial Interactions, Environmental Behavior, and Sustainable Remediation

This Special Issue invites interdisciplinary research on micro and nano plastics (MNPs) across air, water, and soil systems. Contributions are expected to address three interconnected areas: microbial interactions, environmental behavior, and sustainable remediation. Microbial interactions focus on biofilm formation on MNPs (the plastisphere), including microbial community succession, horizontal gene transfer, and metabolic shifts. Conversely, microbial activity can modify plastic surface properties and contribute to polymer degradation. Environmental behavior encompasses physical fragmentation, photo oxidation, aggregation, sedimentation, sorption of coexisting pollutants, and transport across multimedia interfaces. These abiotic processes, together with biological influences, collectively determine the mobility, bioavailability, and long term fate of MNPs. Sustainable remediation includes physical removal methods such as filtration and coagulation, chemical oxidation, enzymatic or microbial degradation, and green material solutions for mitigating MNP pollution. Decoupling microbial effects from abiotic weathering pathways and assessing both under realistic multimedia conditions remain key challenges.

Microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs), plastisphere, microbial Interactions, environmental behavior and fate, pollutant sorption and transport, biodegradation, microbial community dynamics, environmental weathering, sustainable remediation, air-water-soil interfaces.