Articles | Volume 25, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-10691-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-10691-2025
Research article
 | 
18 Sep 2025
Research article |  | 18 Sep 2025

The atmospheric settling of commercially sold microplastics

Alina Sylvia Waltraud Reininger, Daria Tatsii, Taraprasad Bhowmick, Gholamhossein Bagheri, and Andreas Stohl

Data sets

Data on the gravitational settling experiments and FLEXPART simulations Alina Reininger https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15744633

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Short summary
Microplastics are transported over large distances in the atmosphere, but the shape-dependence of their atmospheric transport lacks investigation. We conducted laboratory experiments and atmospheric transport simulations to study the settling of commercially sold microplastics. We found that films settle up to 74 % slower and travel up to ~ 4x further than volume-equivalent spheres. Our work emphasizes the role of the atmosphere as a transport medium for commercial microplastics such as glitter.
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