Multi-residue analysis of pharmaceuticals in wastewater by ultra-performance liquid chromatography–quadrupole–time-of-flight mass spectrometry

In this work, a new multi-residue method using ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Q–TOF–MS) was developed for screening and confirmation of 29 pharmaceutical compounds belonging to different therapeutical classes: analgesics and antiinflammatories, lipid regulating agents cholesterol lowering statin agents, psychiatric drugs, anti ulcer agents, histamine H2 receptor antagonist, antibiotics and beta-blockers. UPLC uses columns packed with 1.7 μm particles and enables elution of sample components in much narrower, more concentrated bands, resulting in better chromatographic resolution and increased peak height. The typical peak width was 5–10 s at base, permitting very good separation of all compounds in 10 min, which represented an approximate three-fold reduction in the analysis time in comparison to conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Unequivocal identification of target pharmaceutical compounds was based on accurate mass measurement of the molecular ions in the TOF mode and by performing collision induced dissociation (CID) in the Q–TOF mode in order to generate accurate mass measurement of the product ions. Using lock mass correction the accurate masses calculated for the product ions deviated from the theoretical masses by 0.2 to 1.3 mDa (root mean square (RMS) value = 0.67) and 0.7–6.4 ppm (RMS = 3.53), respectively. Quantitation was carried out working in the TOF mode using the narrow window extracted ion chromatograms (nwXICs) of each compound (extracted using a 20 mDa window) yielding relative standard deviation (RSD) from 0.5 to 5.3% (run-to-run) and from 2.1 to 9.1% (day-to-day) and instrumental detection limits (IDLs) from 1 to 200 pg. Analysis of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) samples gave method detection limits (MDLs) ranging from 10 to 500 ng/L. The UPLC–Q–TOF method was successfully applied to analyze pharmaceutical residues in WWTP samples.