Comparison of different extraction methods for the determination of statin drugs in wastewater and river water by HPLC/Q-TOF-MS

Three preconcentration techniques including solid phase extraction (SPE), dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) and stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) have been optimized and compared for the analysis of six hypolipidaemic statin drugs (atorvastatin, fluvastatin, lovastatin, pravastatin, rosuvastatin and simvastatin) in wastewater and river water samples by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC/Q-TOF-MS). Parameters that affect the efficiency of the different extraction methods such as solid phase material, sample pH and elution solvent in the case of SPE; the type and volume of the extracting and dispersive solvent, pH of sample, salt addition and number of extraction steps in the case of DLLME; and the stirring time, pH of sample, sample volume and salt addition for SBSE were evaluated. SPE allowed the best recoveries for most of the analytes. Pravastatin was poorly extracted by DLLME and could not be determined. SBSE was only applicable for lovastatin and simvastatin. However, despite the limitations of having poorer recovery than SPE, DLLME and SBSE offered some advantages because they are simple, require low organic solvent volumes and present low matrix effects. DLLME required less time of analysis, and for SBSE the stir-bar was re-usable. SPE, DLLME and SBSE provided method detection limits in the range of 0.04-11.2 ng L−1, 0.10-17.0 ng L−1 for 0.52-2.00 ng L−1, respectively, in real samples. To investigate and compare their applicability, SPE, DLLME and SBSE procedures were applied to the detection of statin drugs in effluent wastewater and river samples.