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105

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data (nautil.us)

submitted 2 days ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/science@mander.xyz

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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

nitrile and latex gloves traditionally worn by laboratory scientists of all stripes, can shed particles called “stearates” that mimic microplastics. These hydrocarbons, added by the glove manufacturers to prevent the gloves from sticking to the molds, can fool spectroscopy machines and are nearly impossible to distinguish from polyethylene under electron microscopes.

[–] its_prolly_fine@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Oh interesting! That's actually kinda cool. Thanks for posting that, I didn't have time to read it originally.