Simultaneous quantitative monitoring of four indicator contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) in different water sources of Central India using SPE/LC-(ESI)MS-MS

• Published in: Environmental monitoring and assessment 2018-08, Vol.190 (8), p.489-12, Article 489
• Main Authors: Appa, Roshan, Mhaisalkar, V. A., Bafana, Amit, Saravana Devi, S., Krishnamurthi, Kannan, Chakrabarti, Tapan, Naoghare, Pravin K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analytical chemistry; Aquatic organisms; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Chromatography, Liquid - methods; Coefficients; Contaminants; Detection; Diclofenac; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecology; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Management; Environmental monitoring; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Environmental science; Hormones; Humans; India; Inlets (waterways); Limit of Detection; Monitoring; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; Progesterone; Protozoa; Reagents; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Solid Phase Extraction - methods; Tandem Mass Spectrometry - methods; Testosterone; Trace levels; Waste Water; Wastewater; Water analysis; Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis; Water sampling; Water sources
• ISSN: 0167-6369; 1573-2959
• DOI: 10.1007/s10661-018-6867-0

Environmental occurrence of CECs poses a great threat to both aquatic life and human health. The aim of this study was to optimize and validate SPE/LC-(ESI)MS-MS method for simultaneous quantitative monitoring of two sub-classes of CECs (pharmaceuticals and hormones) and to estimate the concentrations of select CECs in environmental water samples. For all the tested analytes, recoveries in laboratory reagent water were greater than 81%. Average percent (relative standard deviation) RSD of the analytes in recovery, repeatability, and reproducibility experiments were ≤ 10%. Determination coefficients ( r 2 ) of primidone, diclofenac, testosterone, and progesterone were estimated to be 0.9979, 0.9972, 0.9968, and 0.9962, respectively. Limits of detection (LOD) for primidone, diclofenac, testosterone, and progesterone were 4.63 ng/L, 5.36 ng/L, 0.55 ng/L, and 0.88 ng/L, respectively. Limits of quantification (LOQ) for primidone, diclofenac, testosterone, and progesterone were 14.72 ng/L, 17.06 ng/L, 1.766 ng/L, and 2.813 ng/L, respectively. Average recoveries in environmental water and wastewater samples were greater than 74% and RSD were ≤ 7%. Trace levels (68.33–125.70 ng/L) of primidone were detected in four environmental water samples, whereas diclofenac was not detected in any of the tested sample. Trace levels of progesterone were observed in two environmental samples (16.64 –203.73 ng/L), whereas testosterone was detected in STP inlet sample (178.16 ng/L).