Comparison of Laboratory Analytical Techniques for the Rapid Identification of Marine Plastics

Here we present a laboratory study that compares a range of approaches for plastics identification: XRF (X-ray fluorescence), ATR-FTIR (attenuated total reflectance - Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), NIR (near-infrared) reflectance spectroscopy, and LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) as a key step in developing field-going plastics sensors for studying marine debris and microplastics.