Abstract: Recent studies have shown that significant abundances of microplastics were detected in atmosphere of cities, remote mountainous areas and the pelagic areas. The atmosphere is an important carrier for the microplastics, especially for the global and long-distance transport, which profoundly changes the flux mechanism of microplastics between marine and terrestrial environments. In this paper, the physicochemical properties, potential sources, transport processes and toxicological effects on human beings of atmospheric microplastics are reviewed. The main shapes of atmospheric microplastics are fiber and fragment. The size of most atmospheric microplastics is concentrated in a narrow range (< 0.5 mm is dominant). The color is variable, mainly black, white and transparent. The types of polymers include more than 30 kinds of synthetic polymers and some natural polymers such as cellulose. Indoor emission is an important source of atmospheric microplastics. The transport and source appointment of atmospheric microplastics are mainly studied by model at current, but its application is less. At present, the research on atmospheric microplastics is in an early stage, and there is a lack of standard sampling and detection procedures. The global research on atmospheric microplastics and the toxicological effects of atmospheric microplastics on human needs to be further studied.

Key words: atmospheric microplastic, fiber, transport, remote area