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Offline solid-phase extraction for preconcentration of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in environmental water and their simultaneous determination using the reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography method

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 188, Article number: 512 (2016) Cite this article

Abstract

The present study reports a precise and simple offline solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for the simultaneous determination of five representative and commonly present pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), a new class of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. The target list of analytes including ciprofloxacin, acetaminophen, caffeine benzophenone and irgasan were separated by a simple HPLC method. The column used was a reversed-phase C18 column, and the mobile phase was 1 % acetic acid and methanol (20:80 v/v) under isocratic conditions, at a flow rate of 1 mL min−1. The analytes were separated and detected within 15 min using the photodiode array detector (PDA). The linearity of the calibration curves were obtained with correlation coefficients 0.98–0.99.The limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), precision, accuracy and ruggedness demonstrated the reproducibility, specificity and sensitivity of the developed method. Prior to the analysis, the SPE was performed using a C18 cartridge to preconcentrate the targeted analytes from the environmental water samples. The developed method was applied to evaluate and fingerprint PPCPs in sewage collected from a residential engineering college campus, polluted water bodies such as Nag river and Pili river and the influent and effluent samples from a sewage treatment plant (STP) situated at Nagpur city, in the peak summer season. This method is useful for estimation of pollutants present in microquantities in the surface water bodies and treated sewage as compared to nanolevel pollutants detected by mass spectrometry (MS) detectors.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express thanks to Dr. Sachin A. Mandavgane of Chemical Engineering Department for providing the laboratory facilities for the sample preparation.

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Affiliations

  1. Chemistry Department, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, 440010, India

    G. Archana & Anupama Kumar

  2. Waste water Technology Division, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR), Nagpur, 440020, India

    Rita Dhodapkar

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  1. G. Archana
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  2. Rita Dhodapkar
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  3. Anupama Kumar
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Correspondence to Rita Dhodapkar or Anupama Kumar.

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G. Archana, Dhodapkar, R. & Kumar, A. Offline solid-phase extraction for preconcentration of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in environmental water and their simultaneous determination using the reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography method. Environ Monit Assess 188, 512 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-016-5510-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-016-5510-1

Keywords

  • Emerging pollutants
  • Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs)
  • Ciprofloxacin
  • Acetaminophen
  • Caffeine
  • Benzophenone
  • Irgasan
  • Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC)
  • Solid-phase extraction (SPE)
  • Wastewater analysis