Determination of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and pesticides in surface and treated waters: method development and survey

Abstract

Water is fundamental to the existence of life since it is essential to a series of activities, such as agriculture, power generation, and public and industrial supplies. The residual water generated by these activities is released into the environment, reaches the water systems, and becomes a potential risk to nontarget organisms. This paper reports the development and validation of a quantitative method, based on solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, for the simultaneous analysis of 18 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and 33 pesticides in surface and drinking waters. The accuracy of the method was determined by calculating the recoveries, which ranged from 70 to 120 % for most pesticides and PPCPs, whereas limits of quantification ranged from 0.8 to 40 ng/L. After the validation step, the method was applied to drinking and surface waters. Pesticides and PPCPs were found in concentrations lower than 135.5 ng/L. The evaluation of different water sources with regard to contamination by pesticides and PPCPs has been quite poor in southern Brazil.

Multi-Residue Method for Determination of Thirty-Five Pesticides, Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Water Using Ionic Liquid-Dispersive Liquid-Liquid Microextraction Combined with Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

“…Pesticides such as clomazone, carbofuran, epoxiconazole, diuron, tebuconazole among others have been widely detected in surface and treated waters in this region. 29 The selected PPCPs have been detected in environmental samples in Brazil and around the world. 29,30 IL-DLLME 10 mL of an aqueous sample was put in a 15 mL glass tube and the pH value was adjusted to 4.…”

“…29 The selected PPCPs have been detected in environmental samples in Brazil and around the world. 29,30 IL-DLLME 10 mL of an aqueous sample was put in a 15 mL glass tube and the pH value was adjusted to 4. The standard surrogate (25 µL of a 10 mg L -1 carbofuran-d 3 and diuron-d 6 standard) was also added to the samples.…”

Analytical Methodologies for the Determination of Personal Care Products in Water Samples

“…Different sorbents have been used in SPE for UV filters determination in environmental waters. Classical C18 [23,58,79] and polymeric PS-DVB [54,73] . When compounds with acidic properties (e.g., benzophenone-4 (BZ4) and phenylbenzymidazole sulfonic acid (PBS)) are also pursued, PVP-DVB/MCX shows better performance compared to PVP-DVB [28,70], since the non-acidic compounds are well retained in the PVP-DVB skeleton, whereas the acidic ones prefer the modified moieties.…”

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products as emerging micropollutants in Brazilian surface waters: a preliminary snapshot on environmental contamination and risks

“…Most of them are based on a primordial data, mainly obtained from acute or chronic toxicity tests. Standard acute toxicity tests, based on shortterm exposure, are commonly expressed as EC 50 or LC 50 , i.e., the concentration required to cause short-term effects or to kill, respectively, half the organisms of a tested population after a specified exposure time. On the other hand, long-term exposure tests provide toxicity data related to the lowest observable effect concentrations (LOEC) or to no-observable effect concentrations (NOEC).…”

“…Both acute (EC 50 or LC 50 ) and chronic (LOEC or NOEC) toxicological data, derived from singlespecies toxicity tests, are used in the literature to calculate PNEC for aquatic systems. In this case, the lowest figures for these tests, representing the worst-case scenario, are commonly be used.…”