Application of hollow fiber-based liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) for the determination of acidic pharmaceuticals in wastewaters

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is a very important problem that requires analytical solutions. The wide variety of matrices and, usually, the low pharmaceuticals levels in the environmental samples requires high sensitive and selective analytical procedures. Wastewaters are one of the more important sources of environmental pollutants but they are very complex matrices that need clean-up procedures prior the analysis. Hollow fiber-based liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) is a relatively new technique used in analytical chemistry for sample pre-treatment that offers high selectivity and sensitivity compared to most traditional extraction techniques. The low organic solvent consumption derived from the use of HF-LPME is according to the current trends to a “Green Chemistry”, and Analytical Chemistry should follow these environmental good practices. This paper describes an extraction method using a polypropylene membrane supporting dihexyl ether (three-phase hollow fiber-based liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME)) for the direct analysis of three pharmaceuticals (salicylic acid (SAC), ibuprofen (IBU) and diclofenac (DIC)) in raw and treated wastewaters followed by a HPLC/MS-MS determination using a highly packed Pursuit® XRs Ultra 2.8 μm C18 column that allows high resolution using low flow-rates and, simultaneously, short retention times. Detection limits were 20, 100 and 300 ng L−1 for salicylic acid, diclofenac and ibuprofen, respectively.