Simultaneous Determination and Occurrences of Pharmaceuticals by Solid-Phase Extraction and Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in Environmental Aqueous Samples

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are emerging contaminants in the aquatic environment. Many pharmaceuticals are not completely removed during wastewater treatment, leading to their presence in wastewater treatment effluents, rivers, lakes, and ground water. Here, we developed analytical methods for monitoring ten pharmaceuticals from surface water by LC/ESI-MS/MS. For sample clean-up and extraction, MCX (mixed cation exchange) and HLB (hydrophilic-lipophilic balance) solid-phase extraction (SPE) cartridges were used. The limits of detection (LOD) in distilled water and the blank surface water were in the range of 0.006 - 0.65 and 1.66 - 45.05 pg/mL, respectively. The limits of quantitation (LOQ) for the distilled water and the blank surface water were in the range of 0.02 - 2.17 and 5.52 - 150.15 pg/mL, respectively. The absolute recoveries for fortified water samples were between 62.1% and 125.4%. Intra-day precision and accuracy for the blank surface water were 2.9% - 24.1% (R.S.D.) and -16.3% - 16.3% (bias), respectively. In surface wastewater near rivers, chlortetracycline and acetylsalicylic acid were detected frequently in the range of 0.017 - 5.404 and 0.029 - 0.269 ng/mL, respectively. Surface water near rivers had higher levels than surface water of domestic treatment plants.