Sucralose : a unique tracer for wastewater intrusion

Abstract

The vitality of the Florida Keys ecosystem has been impacted by various anthropogenic influences, whereas one of the significant influences is the local intrusion of untreated wastewater. Prior research has elucidated the unique stability of sucralose under human and microbial metabolic processes and low decay rates in water, sediment, soil and sewage compartments. The unique environmental stability of sucralose and its specificity to anthropogenic sources, served as a basis to assess it as an ideal molecular tracer for wastewater intrusion. This study presents the development and validation of two isotope dilution methods, sucralose i.e. Splenda®. One method applied ESI-LC-MSMS, while the other employed (GC-MS). Sucralose was discovered to be an ideal tracer occurring at higher concentrations than previously detected pollutants in the chosen study sites. Furthermore, the accuracy, precision and detection limits of both analytical methods were suitable for the environmental monitoring in coastal marine waters of the Florida Keys.