Screening test battery for pharmaceuticals in urine and wastewater

Abstract

A test battery for identifying ecotoxicological hazards was applied to six pharmaceuticals (carbamazepine, diclofenac, ethinylestradiol, ibuprofen, propranolol, and sulfamethoxazole), to their mixtures, and to urine spiked with pharmaceuticals to test the suitability of biotests for screening urine and wastewater and for monitoring the efficiency of wastewater treatment. The test battery comprised the bioluminescence inhibition test with Vibrio fischeri, the yeast estrogen screen, and a photosynthesis inhibition assay in algae based on chlorophyll fluorescence measurements. Mixture and additional experiments with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals added to urine confirmed the applicability of the test systems as an integrated measure of the overall micropollutant burden. Because the concentration of pharmaceuticals in wastewater is low and the nutrients and salts may have a negative impact on the bioassays, urine and wastewater samples were cleaned and concentrated by solid-phase extraction (SPE). The compounds of interest ranged from polar to nonpolar and from positively charged to neutral and negatively charged. Consequently, the SPE method was optimized for universality rather than for specificity. Results of preliminary experiments with raw and treated urine and wastewater indicate the suitability of the proposed test battery for screening urine and wastewater.

Constructing the ecological sanitation: a review on technology and methods

“…Low pH values can also have an impact on pharmaceuticals present in the urine. At pH ¼ 2, an inactivation level of between 50% and 95% could be found for antibiotics and the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac (Escher et al, 2005). The prevention of urine hydrolysis is much more economical than subsequent neutralization.…”

Influence of different flow conditions on the occurrence and behavior of potentially hazardous organic xenobiotics in the influent and effluent of a municipal sewage treatment plant in Germany: an effect-directed approach

“…The bioluminescence inhibition test with Vibrio fischeri has been proven to be a sensitive test for the effects of organic xenobiotics in wastewater [8,35,36]. It is a standardized short-time bioassay with a high degree of reliability.…”

“…Moreover, V. fischeri tolerates a content of methanol of up to 10% and is therefore well suited for the combination with chemical fractionation [12,35]. The bioluminescence inhibition assay relies on baseline toxicity (narcosis) and is suitable for the general screening of environmental samples as it does not focus on any specific toxicological class of pollutants [36]. On the whole, the bioluminescence inhibition assay correlates very well with other bioassays and represents, therefore, a plausible endpoint for a risk assessment to aquatic organisms [8].…”

Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Pharmaceuticals in the Aquatic Environment: A Review

“…2006). While such approaches have been tested with some success, for instance, for urine and wastewater (Escher et al. 2005), they still lack the sensitivity to assess effects in natural waters in many cases, cover only a limited range of modes of actions or yield rather phenomenological results that are difficult to generalize.…”