A year-long study of the occurrence and risk of over 140 contaminants of emerging concern in wastewater influent, effluent and receiving waters in the Republic of Ireland

Targeted multi-analyte UHPLC-MS/MS methodology for emerging contaminants in septic tank wastewater, sludge and receiving surface water

“…Most remaining ECs were accurate for most concentrations and matrices. This is similar to the results reported by Rapp-Wright et al 31 for direct injection LC-MS/MS, and considering the complexitiy of matrices and the number of analytical steps involved, precision and accuracy were considered acceptable. Absolute recoveries following SPE were 0-194% in septic tank inuent, 1-200% in septic tank effluent, and 0-122% in river water (Fig.…”

“…MQLs were 6.7 × 10 −3 –8.8 μg L −1 in influent, 8.1 × 10 −3 –14 μg L −1 in effluent, and 7.2 × 10 −3 –8.3 μg L −1 in river water (S9: Table S10†). While these MQLs were sufficient for the determination of high use compounds, such as metformin or paracetamol, 29,31,32 hormones and antibiotics have predicted no-effect concentrations (PNEC) < 1 μg L −1 and are reported in freshwater at ng L −1 . Hence, the use of a SPE method was necessary to determine all ECs at the relevant concentrations.…”

“…30 In wastewater, different ECs are present in a wide concentration range from low ng L −1 (e.g., ciprooxacin) to high mg L −1 (e.g., metformin). 29,31,32 As septic tanks are used by fewer people than centralised WWTWs, the variations in concentration and detection of ECs in effluents can be higher. 13 The wide concentration range, poses a challenge for 'SPE-only' methods, as it requires the dilution and reanalysis of samples following data processing, when concentrations are above the calibration range.…”

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the Aquatic Environment: How Can Regions at Risk be Identified in the Future?

“…In the last decade, environmental monitoring efforts specifically quantifying >50 targeted PPCPs in single analytical methods have become relatively common (see Kuzmanovic et al, 2015; Llamas et al, 2020; Rapp‐Wright et al, 2023; Wilkinson et al, 2019). These methods also increasingly quantify concentrations of compounds belonging to several classes of contaminants simultaneously (e.g., pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, and perfluoroalkyl chemicals).…”

Mitigating risks and maximizing sustainability of treated wastewater reuse for irrigation

“…Many studies have evaluated pharmaceuticals in TWW ( Alygizakis et al., 2020 ; Beretsou et al., 2022 ; Moslah et al., 2018 ; Panthi et al., 2019 ; Rapp-Wright et al., 2023 ; Rordriguez-Mozaz et al., 2020 ;); including those noting that TWW has higher prevalence and concentration of antimicrobials than other irrigation water sources ( Panthi et al., 2019 ). The uptake of pharmaceuticals and other CECs by plants results from passive diffusion through the cell membrane.…”