Simultaneous determination of drug active compound, hormones, pesticides, and endocrine disruptor compounds in wastewater samples by GC-MS with direct calibration and matrix matching strategies after preconcentration with dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction

DLLME was coupled with GC-MS for the simultaneous determination of a drug active compound, hormones, pesticides, and endocrine disruptor compounds with high accuracy and reproducibility in this study. Extraction parameters that affect extraction output including types and volumes of dispersive and extraction solvents, and effect of salt addition were optimized to lower the detection limits for 12 compounds. Under the optimum conditions, LOD and LOQ values were found between 1.99-5.05 and 6.63-16.87 ng/mL, respectively. Spiked recovery tests were also applied to wastewater samples to check the applicability of the method. Matrix matching strategy was used to improve the overall recovery results of the analytes obtained for municipal wastewater. Two different municipal wastewater samples were used in the matrix matching studies. Percent recovery values calculated with the matrix matching experiments were between 85-114%. The results obtained indicated that the developed method could be applied for the determination of the analytes of interest with high accuracy and sensitivity.