RT Journal Article
T1 A new analytical method to determine trace level concentrations of pharmaceuticals in influent wastewater: a tool to monitor human use patterns
A1 Fontanals Torroja, Núria
A1 Pocurull Aixala, Eva
A1 Rodríguez Mozaz, Sara
A1 Montes Goyanes, Rosa
A1 González Mariño, Iria
A1 Santana Vieira, Sergio
A1 Miró Lladó, Manuel
A1 Rico Artero, Andreu
A1 Borrull Ballarín, Francesc
A1 Quintana Álvarez, José Benito
A1 Marcé Recasens, Rosa Maria
K1 Pharmaceuticals
K1 Solid-phase extraction
K1 Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry
K1 Influent wastewater
K1 Wastewater-based epidemiology
AB The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in influent wastewater samples (IWW) is a recurrent issue. The monitoring of their presence is not only valuable from an environmental point of view, but also as a tool to analyze patterns of human use by the so-called wastewater-based epidemiology. The development of an analytical method based on solid-phase extraction followed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry to monitor the occurrence of a group of seventeen pharmaceuticals including the most representative for various therapeutic families in IWW samples is described in this work. The samples were collected during a monitoring week in six wastewater treatment plants located in different cities and towns across Spain. The developed method provides acceptable figures of merit with apparent recoveries in IWW ranging from 42% to 139%, and low matrix effect (in general lower than ± 30%), and method quantification limits (MQL) between 1 ng/L and 24 ng/L for all compounds, except atenolol (58 ng/L). All the studied pharmaceuticals were found in all samples with concentrations ranging from < MQL to 10,393 ng/L, being the highest concentrations for tramadol. The population normalized daily loads revealed that the use of pharmaceuticals follows, in general, a similar pattern in all cities monitored.
PB Elsevier
SN 0026-265X
YR 2023
FD 2023
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30964
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30964
LA eng
NO N. Fontanals et al. Microchemical Journal 193 (2023) 109131
NO The authors would like to thank the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, for granting the projects PID2020-114587GB-I00, PID2020-117686RB-C32 and PID2020-117686RB-C33, and the Ministerio de Sanidad on account of the Spanish Plan Nacional Sobre Drogas (2020I009) for their financial support. Talented Researcher Support Programme – PlanGenT (CIDEGENT/2020/043) of the Generalitat Valenciana and Economy and Knowledge Department of the Catalan Government through the Consolidated Research Group (ICRA-ENV – 2021 SGR 01282) is also acknowledged.
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026