Monitoring and environmental risk assessment of benzotriazole UV stabilizers in the sewage and coastal environment of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

Abstract

Benzotriazole UV stabilizers (BUVSs) are emerging contaminants that are widely used in personal care products, such as cosmetics and sunscreens, to absorb ultraviolet light. These compounds have been described as bioaccumulative, pseudo-persistent and toxic; therefore, it is of great importance to investigate them and determine their presence and distribution in the environment. In this research, we performed a two-year monitoring study to identify six BUVS compounds (UV-P, UV-326, UV-327, UV-328, UV-329 and UV-360) in different environmental compartments from Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain): influent and effluent from five wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and seawater and sediment samples from three marine areas influenced by sewage outfalls discharges from WWTPs. Two methods based on on-line solid-phase extraction and microwave-assisted extraction coupled with ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection were applied to quantify the analytes in liquid and solid samples, respectively. The target BUVSs were measured in sewage, coastal seawater and sediment samples in concentrations in the ranges of 13.12–1933 ng L−1, 67.01–2419 ng L−1 and 4.42–2162 ng kg−1 dry weight, respectively. The studied compounds exhibited different trends of occurrence in aqueous and solid samples due to their different coefficients of hydrophobicity. The majority of the positive samples belonged to the most touristic sampling location of the island. The estimated hazard quotient, HQ, revealed no risk from the target compounds at the measured concentrations levels.