Micro- and Nanoplastics Consulting Services

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Industry Analysis

Microplastics Testing Explained

How does Exponent help clients navigate the evolving microplastics landscape?

Navigating evolving scientific and regulatory expectations around micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) can be time-consuming, confusing, and risky. Our scientists and engineers help reduce that burden by providing clear, evidence-based guidance so you can make confident decisions and avoid potentially costly missteps.

We help you:

Identify, assess, and manage MNP risks across the lifecycle of your products and processes
Identify vulnerabilities in manufacturing and material sourcing
Generate credible data and documentation intended for regulators, customers, and internal stakeholders

Our multidisciplinary team develops custom testing strategies, interprets complex data, and applies advanced analytical methods to turn uncertainty into clear, actionable next steps — tailored to your products, timelines, and compliance needs.

Industries We Support

We provide MNP consulting and custom testing and analysis for a wide range of industries and applications, including:

• Food contact materials

• Food manufacturing processes

• Consumer products

• Primary microplastics (e.g. synthetic microbeads)

• Oil and gas infrastructure

• Coatings

• Plastic manufacturing and processing

• And more

Capabilities

Our experts conduct extensive literature reviews, helping you contextualize emerging research on microplastics. Drawing on decades of multidisciplinary expertise and experience, we distill complex scientific information into actionable insights for commercial products and industrial applications across industries, creating clarity around regulatory trends, human and environmental health implications, and technical and analytical developments.
Exponent offers advanced, custom MNP testing services, including quantification, composition analysis, and evaluation of complex mixtures. While commodity testing firms often rely solely on limited standardized protocols and focus on larger, more easily analyzed particles, our teams routinely develop custom test methods tailored to your unique needs. This includes bespoke approaches to sample preparation, simulated product use, particle isolation, and data interpretation
By optimizing these steps and leveraging our analytical chemistry expertise in conjunction with extensive experience in polymer and plastic formulations and manufacturing, we can help tackle even the most challenging samples — highly diluted mixtures, very small particles, and samples requiring complex particle-separation processes — and provide answers that standardized methods alone can't deliver. Our capabilities include:
- Custom sample preparation methods
- Particle imaging
- Particle morphology assessment
- Light obscuration testing ("liquid particle counting")
- Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Raman spectroscopy
- Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
Exponent's toxicologists, industrial hygienists, exposure scientists, polymer scientists, and product stewardship experts help you understand the complexities of human exposures to microplastics and potential health risks by assessing potential MNP hazards consumer, occupational, and environmental settings, identifying MNP release and exposure pathways, measuring or modeling exposure levels, and determining weight-of-evidence for health risk estimation.
Our teams evaluate complex exposure scenarios in consumer products, occupational processes, food contact materials, and food and environmental samples — including mixtures of MNPs, heavy metals, volatile organics, and plastic additives — to determine their individual and combined health risks based on available toxicological literature. We also conduct occupational exposure assessments across industries, providing on-site evaluation and sampling, exposure modeling, process simulations, dose reconstructions, and dose‑response analyses tailored to your needs.
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Exponent's environmental scientists offer rigorous assessments of MNP fate, transport, and potential hazards in diverse environments. We help you analyze the sources, types, size distributions and concentrations of MNPs in various environmental media, giving you clear insights into how much and what types of MNPs and other associated chemical substances are present. Our team helps you understand the current science, regulatory context, and implications for your operations in circumstances where reliable data may be scarce or evolving and when complex legal disputes arise.
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Exponent's multidisciplinary experts provide you with rigorous manufacturing evaluations to identify and trace the root sources of MNPs. Our teams conduct on-site inspections spanning the entire product lifecycle — from raw material sourcing and supply chain assessment to in-plant workflows and final packaging. We apply advanced chemical analyses to pinpoint whether MNPs may originate from the manufacturing process itself, raw materials, specific components such as conveyor systems, or environmental dust.
By examining each step — such as the mechanical interaction of plastic parts, airborne particulates, and/or process conditions — we help you understand whether contamination may be introduced through production, handling, or external sources, differentiating between manufacturing equipment, materials, or environmental exposure and generating the actionable insights needed to mitigate risks and maintain product integrity.

Capabilities

Our Capabilities Are Unparalleled

Exponent closely monitors the continually changing regulatory landscape for micro- and nanoplastics. Our experts help clients understand potential MNP risks and develop strategies to support compliance and product stewardship programs.

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Exposure assessments, toxicity evaluations, and support for issues of toxicology and mechanistic biology.

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How are MNPs formed, and what distinguishes intentional from unintentional creation?

MNPs can be generated through both intentional and unintentional processes. Intentionally produced or "primary" MNPs, such as microbeads and nurdles, are manufactured for use in products like cosmetics, cleaning agents, industrial abrasives, and used in the production of other plastic products. Unintentionally produced or "secondary" MNPs arise from the fragmentation of larger plastic items across their lifecycle through mechanisms such as environmental exposure, physical abrasion, ultraviolet radiation, and chemical and thermal degradation.

While policy changes have led to bans on microbeads in many regions, the ongoing breakdown of plastic materials remains a diffuse source of MNPs in the environment.

What are the current methods for detecting and measuring MNPs in the environment?

Detecting and measuring MNPs can involve a combination of sampling, filtration, and advanced analytical techniques such as Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS), and electron microscopy. These methods allow scientists to identify particle composition, sizes, and potentially assess concentrations in water, soil, air, and biological samples, and determine which of these particles are MNPs. Ongoing improvements in detection technologies are helping researchers better understand the prevalence and impact of MNPs across different environments.

Experts

Our global and comprehensive expertise across industries gives us a deep understanding of current challenges, best industry practices, and the implications of emerging technologies.