Development and validation of a LC-PDA method for methylphenidate analysis in sewage

Abstract

Methylphenidate (MPH) is an important emerging pollutant found in effluents and wastewater. Thus, we aimed to develop and validate a method for detection and quantitation of MPH residues in sewage through high performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detector (LC-PDA). Here we describe a selective, accurate, precise, and valid method for determination of MPH in sewage with a total running time of 10 min, with limits of detection and quantification of 0.27 and 0.92 µg/mL, respectively. MPH retention peak was observed at 5 min. The method was applied to MPH analysis in a sewage sample pretreated with solid phase extraction, obtaining a result of 2.8 µg/L of MPH. Thus, the developed method can be considered feasible to be applied to MPH residual contamination analysis in sewage using a widely available apparatus.

Keywords:

• Methylphenidate
• emerging pollutants
• wastewater
• method validation
• HPLC
• PDA
• environmental contamination

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank L.J.G. Barcellos for the substantial and inspiring teaching, that was applied in this manuscript.

Data availability statement

The authors state that data is no longer available.