Determination of pharmaceuticals in sewage sludge by pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) coupled to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)

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In this study, we aimed at optimizing a sensitive and reliable method for a simultaneous determination of 31 pharmaceuticals belonging to predominant therapeutic classes identified in different types of sewage sludge proceeding from conventional and advanced wastewater treatment. Freeze-dried sewage sludge was extracted by pressurized liquid extraction technique using accelerated solvent extractor Dionex 300. In order to minimize interferences with matrix components and to preconcentrate target analytes, solid phase extraction was introduced in the method as a clean-up step. The entire method was validated for linearity, precision, accuracy, and method detection limits (MDLs). The method turned out to be specific, sensitive, and reliable for the analysis of sludge of different composition, type, and retention time in the process. The developed sample preparation protocol and previously published method for LC-MS/MS analysis (Gros et al., Talanta 70:678-690, 2006) were successfully applied to monitor the target pharmaceuticals in different types of sewage sludge, i.e., primary sludge, secondary sludge, treated sludge, and sludge proceeding from pilot-scale membrane bioreactors (MBRs) operating in parallel to the conventional activated sludge treatment. Among the investigated pharmaceuticals, 20 were detected in the sludge proceeding from full-scale installations, whereas the MBR sludge concentrations were below MDLs for several compounds. The highest concentrations were recorded for treated and primary sludge. For example, the mean concentration of ibuprofen in the digested sludge was 299.3 +/- 70.9 ng g(-1) dw, whereas in the primary sludge, it was enriched up to 741.1 ng g(-1) dw. Other pharmaceuticals detected at relatively high concentrations were diclofenac, erythromycin, glibenclamide, ketoprofen, ofloxacin, azithromycin (up to 380.7, 164.2, 190.7, 336.3, 454.7, 299.6 ng g(-1) dw in the primary sludge, respectively), gemfibrozil, loratidine, and fluoxetine (up to 189.1, 189.7 and 174.1 ng g(-1) dw in the treated sludge, respectively).