An assessment of the concentrations of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater treatment plants on the island of Gran Canaria(Spain)

Abstract

An assessment of the concentrations of thirteen different therapeutic pharmaceutical compounds was conducted\non water samples obtained from different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) using solid phase extraction and\nhigh- and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection (HPLC-MS/MS and\nUHPLC-MS/MS), was carried out.\nThe target compounds included ketoprofen and naproxen (anti-inflammatories), bezafibrate (lipid-regulating),\ncarbamazepine (anticonvulsant), metamizole (analgesic), atenolol (?-blocker), paraxanthine (stimulant), fluoxetine\n(antidepressant), and levofloxacin, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin and sarafloxacin (fluoroquinolone\nantibiotics).\nThe relative standard deviations obtained in method were below 11%, while the detection and quantification limits\nwere in the range of 0.3 ? 97.4 ng·L-1 and 1.1 ? 324.7 ng·L-1, respectively. The water samples were collected from\ntwo different WWTPs located on the island of Gran Canaria in Spain over a period of one year. The first WWTP\n(denoted as WWTP1) used conventional activated sludge for the treatment of wastewater, while the other plant\n(WWTP2) employed a membrane bioreactor system for wastewater treatment.\nMost of the pharmaceutical compounds detected in this study during the sampling periods were found to have\nconcentrations ranging between 0.02 and 34.81 ?g·L-1.