Simultaneous separation and determination of several chiral antidepressants and their enantiomers in wastewater by online heart-cutting two-dimensional liquid chromatography

• Published in: Ecotoxicology and environmental safety 2023-09, Vol.263, p.115302-115302, Article 115302
• Main Authors: Zhong, Jinjian, Liu, Xin, Chen, Linzhou, Li, Kan, Hu, Qingkun, Wu, Ke, Zhou, Jidan, Shi, Yuesen, Fan, Huajun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antidepressant; Enantioseparation; Solid-phase extraction; Two-dimensional liquid chromatography; Wastewater
• ISSN: 0147-6513; 1090-2414
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.115302

A novel method for simultaneous separation and detection of the racemates and the enantiomers of common chiral antidepressants in wastewater matrix was developed by online heart-cutting two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) coupled to solid-phase extraction (SPE). Screening of chiral stationary phases (CSPs) and chromatographic conditions was investigated for complete enantioseparation to be compatible with RP-HPLC in 1st D-LC. Using methanol-0.1 % (v/v) ammonia solution as mobile phase, a 2D-LC system was configured by reversed mode with a combination of C18 column and the serially CPS columns as 2D-LC stationary phases respectively. The target analytes could achieve satisfactory transformation between 2D-LCs with transfer rate of 90.57–98.58 %. By means of freeze-drying and SPE, three antidepressants in wastewater were greatly preconcentrated under the optimized conditions, improving the method performance. The racemates and the enantiomers of mirtazapine, bupropion and fluoxetine exhibited good linearity in the range of 0.10–30.00 ng/mL (R2≥0.9986), and LODs and LOQs ranged in 0.0183–0.0549 ng/mL and 0.0661–0.1831 ng/mL, respectively. By this way, the method was successfully applied to simultaneous determination of the racemates and the enantiomers of mirtazapine, bupropion and fluoxetine in wastewater samples. Among them, three samples contained bupropion at level of 0.401–0.822 ng/mL, and mirtazapine at level of 0.328 and fluoxetine at level of 0.381 ng/mL were detected respectively in the other two samples. The enantiomers were at level of 0.140–0.189 ng/mL for mirtazapine, 0.182–0.419 ng/mL for bupropion and 0.179–0.204 ng/mL for fluoxetine, respectively. The proposed method providing an efficient approach to monitoring chiral drugs and their enantiomers in wastewater, facilitating to pollution assessment of chiral drugs in the environment and regional survey of illicit abuse in drug control. [Display omitted] •Development of separation and detection of racemates and enantiomers of chiral antidepressants by 2D-LC.•Investigation of chromatographic conditions for configuration of 2D-LC system in reversed mode.•Screening and optimization of SPE conditions for preconcentration of antidepressants.•Simultaneous determination of racemates and enantiomers by online heart-cutting 2D-LC coupled to SPE.•Successful application for monitoring of racemates and enantiomers for antidepressants in wastewater samples.