Simultaneous Determination of 24 Antidepressant Drugs and Their Metabolites in Wastewater by Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Molecules

Ling-Hui Sheng²  Hong-Rui Chen¹  Ying-Bin Huo¹  Jing Wang³  Yu Zhang¹  Min Yang¹ 

[1] Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; E-Mails:;College of Resources and Environment, Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; E-Mail:;National Institute of Metrology, Beijing 100013, China; E-Mail:

关键词: pharmaceuticals;    antidepressants drug;    solid phase extraction;    wastewater treatment plants;   

DOI  :  10.3390/molecules19011212

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Antidepressants are a new kind of pollutants being increasingly found in wastewater. In this study, a fast and sensitive ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed and validated for the analysis of 24 antidepressant drugs and six of their metabolites in wastewater. This is the first time that the antidepressant residues in wastewater of Beijing (China) were systematically reported. A solid-phase extraction process was performed with 3 M cation disk, followed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry measurements. The chromatographic separation and mass parameters were optimized in order to achieve suitable retention time and good resolution for analytes. All compounds were satisfactorily determined in one single injection within 20 min. The limit of quantification (LOQ), linearity, and extraction recovery were validated. The LOQ for analytes were ranged from 0.02 to 0.51 ng/mL. The determination coefficients were more than 0.99 within the tested concentration range (0.1–25 ng/mL), and the recovery rate for each target compound was ranged from 81.2% to 118% at 1 ng/mL. This new developed method was successfully applied to analysis the samples collected from Beijing municipal wastewater treatment plants. At least ten target antidepressants were found in all samples and the highest mean concentration of desmethylvenlafaxin was up to 415.6 ng/L.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.