Simultaneous extraction and determination of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in river water and sewage by solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

This study features the simultaneous extraction and quantification of 18 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). This is a pioneering method for the quantification of acetaminophen, sulfamethoxazole, diclofenac, atenolol, metoprolol, diethyltoluamide and oxybenzone in atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation mode. The method was validated for high repeatability and reproducibility with relative standard deviations less than 10%. Instrument quantification limits for PPCPs were within the range of 0.05–1.0 µg L⁻¹, and the method quantification limits (MQLs) for ultrapure water were within the range of 0.3–15 ng L⁻¹. All samples were extracted using Oasis© hydrophilic–lipophilic balanced cartridges with optimised sample size and extraction conditions. Good accuracy was demonstrated, with solid-phase extraction recoveries above 80% for most PPCPs. In environmental matrices, the MQLs for river water, sewage treatment plant (STP) effluent and STP influent were 4–25, 10–153 and 38–386.5, respectively. The method was successfully applied to investigate occurrences of persistent PPCPs in Malaysian river and sewage samples.

Keywords:

• Pharmaceuticals
• personal care products (PCPs)
• environmental pollution
• solid-phase extraction (SPE)
• liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)
• atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI)

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by fund of the Ministry of Education under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (project number 5524013). The author would like to thank the Kuok Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship for financial support granted to the principal researcher.