A bibliometric analysis of characterization of microplastics and nanoplastics in marine environment based on Web of Science

To investigate the current status， hotspots， and future development trends of quantitative research on microplastics and nanoplastics in the marine environment， this study， based on the Web of Science Core Collection， uses CiteSpace to conduct a visual analysis of 422 related literature in the field of microplastics and nanoplastics quantification in the marine environment from 2012 to 2023. The study unfolds from multiple aspects such as annual publication volume， research institutions， national and author collaboration networks， keyword clustering and emergence， and co-citation analysis. The results indicate that the volume of publications on the quantification of microplastics and nanoplastics in the marine environment is generally on the rise， currently in a phase of research innovation. In this field， China leads in the number of publications but needs to enhance collaboration with other countries； Italy demonstrates a promising developing trend with a high publication volume and excellent international cooperation. It is noteworthy that foreign institutions have closer collaborations， and most core authors and highly cited papers are from abroad. Keyword clustering analysis reveals that research mainly focuses on the occurrence characteristics， characterization， and quantification， and the ecological risks of microplastics and nanoplastics. Keyword burst analysis suggests that the standardization of sample collection and detection methods， the characterization and quantification of nanoscale plastics， and the numerical modeling and prediction of source-sink processes of micro/nanoplastics are expected to become key directions and hotspots in future research.