RT Journal Article
T1 Chlorhexidine residues in sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants: analytical determination and toxicity evaluation
A1 Cobo Golpe, Miguel
A1 Castro Varela, Gabriela
A1 Ramil Criado, María
A1 Cela Torrijos, Rafael
A1 Santos Rodríguez, Ysabel
A1 Rodríguez Pereiro, Isaac
K1 Chlorhexidine
K1 Matrix solid-phase extraction
K1 Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry
K1 Sludge
K1 Ecotoxicity
AB In this work, a procedure for the sensitive and selective determination of chlorhexidine in sludge from municipal sewage treatment plants (STPs) based on matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) and liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) was optimized and validated. Analysis of sewage sludge samples, obtained from different STPs in Northwest Spain from 2018 to 2021, showed that chlorhexidine was ubiquitous in this environmental compartment with concentrations between 0.3 and 16 µg g−1. The toxicity of this pollutant was assessed in in vitro assays considering three different model organisms: Candida albicans, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus. C. albicans was the most sensitive of the tested microorganisms to chlorhexidine with a lethal threshold concentration of 0.1 mg L−1. Thus, the lowest observed sludge residue was 3 times higher than the acute toxicity threshold measured for C. albicans. Moreover, E. coli and S. aureus were also affected at chlorhexidine concentrations around 1.8 mg L−1 and 0.5 mg L−1, respectively. So, chlorhexidine residues might affect the population of microorganisms existing in STPs. In addition, the potential phytotoxicity of the compound was evaluated with germination experiments using different model seeds. At the evaluated dose (10 µg g−1 dried soil), chlorhexidine did not affect the germination of Sorghum saccharatum, Lepidium sativum, or Sinapis alba seeds. Thus, amending agriculture soils with chlorhexidine containing sludge is unlikely to affect the germination of plants
PB Springer
SN 1618-2642
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29151
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29151
LA eng
NO Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (2022) 414:6571–6580. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04214-0
NO Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This study was supported by Spanish Government and Xunta de Galicia through grants PGC2018-094613-B-I00 and ED431C 2021/06, co-funded by the EU. M. Cobo Golpe received FPI fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026