Rapid detection of multiple class pharmaceuticals in both municipal wastewater and sludge with ultra high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry
Xiangjuan Yuan , Zhimin Qiang
,
Weiwei Ben
,
Bing Zhu
,
Junxin Liu
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2014.06.022
Received October 29, 2013,Revised January 10, 2014, Accepted , Available online September 10, 2014
Volume 26,2014,Pages 1949-1959
This work described the development, optimization and validation of an analytical method for rapid detection of multiple-class pharmaceuticals in both municipal wastewater and sludge samples based on ultrasonic solvent extraction, solid-phase extraction, and ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry quantification. The results indicated that the developed method could effectively extract all the target pharmaceuticals (25) in a single process and analyze them within 24 min. The recoveries of the target pharmaceuticals were in the range of 69%-131% for wastewater and 54%-130% for sludge at different spiked concentration levels. The method quantification limits in wastewater and sludge ranged from 0.02 to 0.73 ng/L and from 0.02 to 1.00 μg/kg, respectively. Subsequently, this method was validated and applied for residual pharmaceutical analysis in a wastewater treatment plant located in Beijing, China. All the target pharmaceuticals were detected in the influent samples with concentrations varying from 0.09 ng/L (tiamulin) to 15.24 μg/L (caffeine); meanwhile, up to 23 pharmaceuticals were detected in sludge samples with concentrations varying from 60 ng/kg (sulfamethizole) to 8.55 mg/kg (ofloxacin). The developed method demonstrated its selectivity, sensitivity, and reliability for detecting multiple-class pharmaceuticals in complex matrices such as municipal wastewater and sludge.
