About LitChemPlast

LitChemPlast is an open database systematically compiling chemo-analytical measurements of chemicals detected in plastics across their entire life cycle. Developed by Helene Wiesinger, Anna Shalin, and colleagues, this resource addresses the critical lack of publicly available, consolidated information on the chemical composition of plastics. It serves researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders engaged in exposure assessment, substance flow analysis, and understanding chemical impacts in a circular plastics economy.

The database functions by aggregating data from 372 peer-reviewed studies published between 1978 and 2021. These studies report on the measured chemical composition of plastic raw materials (e.g., granulate), various products (e.g., agricultural, building and construction, packaging), and waste. The creators manually extracted bibliographic data, detailed sample information, analytical methods (distinguishing between targeted and nontargeted approaches), and specific chemical measurements and concentrations. The collected data underwent harmonization for chemical identifiers (CASRN, IUPAC name), substance categories, product categories, polymer types, sampling stages, and recycling status, with concentrations standardized to milligrams per kilogram of plastic. This comprehensive approach provides essential chemical context for plastic analysis, complementing tools like Open Spectroscopy which focus on spectroscopic data, or the PlastChem database on plastic-associated chemicals.

Key Features of LitChemPlast

• Contains over 65,000 entries on more than 3,600 unique chemicals detected in over 47,000 plastic samples.
• Covers samples from diverse plastic life cycle stages, including raw materials, products in use, and waste streams.
• Differentiates between targeted analyses and nontargeted screening workflows, revealing detection trends for various substance types.
• Includes harmonized data points such as CASRN, IUPAC name, InChI, SMILES, detection frequency, concentration (mg/kg), polymer type (15 categories), product category (8 main, 51 sub-categories), sampling stage (5 categories), and recycling status.
• Excludes specific searches for food packaging and textiles due to existing dedicated resources and methodological challenges, though some were included if encountered.

Development and Validation

The LitChemPlast database was developed by Helene Wiesinger, Anna Shalin, Xinmei Huang, Armin Siegrist, Nils Plinke, Stefanie Hellweg, and Zhanyun Wang. It is the result of a thorough scoping review of chemo-analytical literature, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters: Wiesinger et al., 2024, Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. The methodology involved a systematic keyword search on Web of Science and SciFinder, followed by a two-stage screening process to identify relevant studies. It is important to note that this scoping review focused on data compilation and did not specifically assess the quality of each included study.

Access and Data Availability

LitChemPlast is openly available and hosted on Zenodo. Researchers can access the database directly via the Zenodo record: https://zenodo.org/records/13271346. The primary database file, LitChemPlast_relational_database_v20240809.zip, is available for download and contains the harmonized data in Excel Spreadsheet format. Additionally, a Python Jupyter notebook (SI3 from the associated paper) is provided, which was used for data analysis and graph generation.

The database and associated article are licensed under CC-BY 4.0, promoting broad reuse and dissemination for scientific purposes.

Community and Support

The creators intend for LitChemPlast to be a community resource, stating that it “may be further built upon by the scientific community and other interested stakeholders.” While no formal support channels or issue trackers are explicitly listed beyond the Zenodo platform, its open-source nature facilitates collaborative development and utilization.

Why This Resource Belongs on Plastiverse

LitChemPlast directly addresses a critical need in microplastics and plastic chemistry research: a consolidated, open-access compilation of chemicals measured in plastics. This resource is invaluable for understanding the full chemical burden of plastics, informing studies on degradation, toxicity, and the viability of circular economy approaches. By providing harmonized data on chemical presence, concentration, and associated plastic types and life cycle stages, LitChemPlast supports robust exposure assessments and substance flow analyses, which are fundamental to environmental and human health risk evaluation in the context of plastic pollution. Its focus on empirical measurement data from a wide range of studies makes it a foundational reference for the Plastiverse community.