Pharmaceuticals in Coastal Waters: An UHPLC-TOF-MS Multi-Residue Approach

Anthropogenic chemical contamination represents a key stressor of natural environments with pharmaceuticals comprising a particular group of emerging pollutants with the potential to induce biological responses in non-target organisms. Therefore, an analytical method based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-TOF-MS) was developed for estuarine and seawaters, targeting 63 globally used pharmaceuticals (including amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim and venlafaxine included in the Surface Water Watch List) from 8 therapeutic groups: antibiotics, analgesic, NSAIDs, antidepressants, beta-blockers, lipid regulators, anticonvulsants and antihypertensive drugs. The method presents high selectivity and sensitivity, with the limits of detection ranging from 0.01 to 8.92 ng/L and the limits of quantification from 0.02 to 29.73 ng/L. Considering precision, the highest value was achieved for amoxicillin (20.9%) and the lower for ofloxacin (2.6%), while recoveries ranged from 80.6 to 112.6%. Overall, the quantification method was highly efficient for multi-residues quantification in such complex environmental samples.

Automated summary

An analytical method based on UHPLC-TOF-MS was developed to detect pharmaceutical residues in estuarine and seawaters. The method has high selectivity and sensitivity, with detection limits ranging from 0.01 to 8.92 ng/L and quantification limits ranging from 0.02 to 29.73 ng/L. The method was highly efficient for multi-residue quantification in complex environmental samples.