Abstract Title: | Mass Spectrometric Investigation of Compounds of Interest to the Chemical Investigation Programme (CIP) within Environmental Matrices: Homogenate Analysis |
Abstract Type: | Seminar |
Session Choice: | Screening Enviroment Pollutants, what can the data tell us? |
Presenter Name: | Ms Rachel Townsend |
Co-authors: | Dr Ruth Godfrey Dr Geertje van Keulen Dr Claire Desbrow |
Company/Organisation: | Swansea University |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Abstract Information :
The environmental persistence of organic pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals is a growing area of research. Until the introduction of Environmental Quality Standards (Directive 2008/105/EC), the impact of drug emission into the environment through wastewater treatment plants has been largely unconfirmed and unrestricted. Research has shown that compounds with high octanol-water partition coefficient (Kow), like many common pharmaceuticals, are not biodegraded during wastewater treatment and are able to bioaccumulate, adsorbing to soils and sludge. As treated sludge is routinely deposited on land, it is important to understand the extent of any chemical accumulation. Focussing on compounds of interest to the Chemical Investigation Programme; a British research initiative concentrating on the monitoring of pollutants in sludge, a reverse-phase liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method has been developed for multi-residue detection and quantitation of 10 pharmaceuticals, with a modified QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) sample preparation method. The modifications made to the QuEChERS method have proven to be effective for other chemical pollutants and offer increased recoveries of pharmaceuticals, with reduced matrix interferences, to reliably quantitate these compounds in complex environmental matrices, such as sludge and biota, using an internal standard approach.