Understanding interactions between oligomeric plastic and lung-sufactants underpinning inhalation risks of airborne plastics

Plastics are widespread in our daily life. The global annual production of plastic waste was 390.7 million metric tons in 2021, and the amount is projected to triple by 2060. Plastics may break down to smaller particles, and ultimately oligomeric polymers, via photo- or bio-degradation. These particles or oligomers ultimately accumulate in the ocean, soil, and atmosphere. Some of these would become airborne, and humans are particularly vulnerable to inhalation risks of airborne plastics; however, our understanding of how these polymers interact with the lung is very limited. Here, we propose to investigate the structure of lung-surfactant bilayers perfused with oligomeric PS (representing the ultimate molecular form of degraded plastics), utilizing X-ray reflectivity (XRR), as well as the structure of the surface layer as lung-surfactant liposomes rupture on a PS surface, elucidating the potential impact of nanoplastics on the structural integrity of pulmonary phospholipid bilayers.