Current trends in green liquid chromatography for the analysis of pharmaceutically active compounds in the environmental water compartments

• Published in: Talanta (Oxford) 2015-01, Vol.132, p.739-752
• Main Authors: Shaaban, Heba, Górecki, Tadeusz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chromatography, Gas; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Chromatography, Liquid; Chromatography, Supercritical Fluid; Conservation of Natural Resources; Environmental analysis; Green Chemistry Technology - methods; Green chromatography; High mobile phase temperature; Hot Temperature; Kinetics; Liquid chromatography; Pharmaceutical Preparations - analysis; Pharmaceuticals; Solvents - chemistry; Water - chemistry; Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis
• ISSN: 0039-9140; 1873-3573
• DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2014.09.050

Green analytical chemistry is an aspect of green chemistry which introduced in the late nineties. The main objectives of green analytical chemistry are to obtain new analytical technologies or to modify an old method to incorporate procedures that use less hazardous chemicals. There are several approaches to achieve this goal such as using environmentally benign solvents and reagents, reducing the chromatographic separation times and miniaturization of analytical devices. Traditional methods used for the analysis of pharmaceutically active compounds require large volumes of organic solvents and generate large amounts of waste. Most of them are volatile and harmful to the environment. With the awareness about the environment, the development of green technologies has been receiving increasing attention aiming at eliminating or reducing the amount of organic solvents consumed everyday worldwide without loss in chromatographic performance. This review provides the state of the art of green analytical methodologies for environmental analysis of pharmaceutically active compounds in the aquatic environment with special emphasis on strategies for greening liquid chromatography (LC). The current trends of fast LC applied to environmental analysis, including elevated mobile phase temperature, as well as different column technologies such as monolithic columns, fully porous sub-2μm and superficially porous particles are presented. In addition, green aspects of gas chromatography (GC) and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) will be discussed. We pay special attention to new green approaches such as automation, miniaturization, direct analysis and the possibility of locating the chromatograph on-line or at-line as a step forward in reducing the environmental impact of chromatographic analyses. Separation of an alkyl benzene mixture on (a) conventional HPLC using 4.6mm i.d. column at 1.5mLmin−1 requiring 12mL of solvent per analysis; and (b) microscale HPLC using 0.3mm i.d. column at 6μLmin−1 requiring only 39μL of solvent per analysis. Conditions: Agilent SB-18, 150mm, 3.5μm particles, UV detection at 220nm, gradient elution 50–95% acetonitrile in water over 5min, then 95% in 1min. [Display omitted] •Monitoring of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment is of great importance.•Traditional methods used for their analysis is not environmentally friendly.•Developing green analytical methods to replace traditional ones is highly needed.•Reducing or eliminating the