Development of a fast UHPLC-MS/MS for the analysis of selected priority micropollutants in wastewater samples

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, there have been many reports on the presence of organic compounds in different compartments of the aquatic environment. The subject of our research was the development of a new method for the determination of selected organic micropollutants and their transformation products in wastewater samples. A rapid and sensitive ultra-high performance liquid chromatographic method coupled with tandem mass spectrometry has been developed and used for the separation and determination of 1H-benzotriazole, imidacloprid and clarithromycin in wastewater samples. The analytes were separated on a ZORBAX SB-C3 column with a gradient elution within 3.0 min. The analytes were isolated from wastewater samples by solid-phase extraction. Extraction was carried out on the Oasis HLB cartridges and methanol:acetone (1:1, v/v) was used for elution. The working ranges of the developed method were 1–100 ng L−1. The recovery ranged from 62% to 102% and intra- and inter-day precision was lower than 13% for all analytes. Finally, the optimised method was applied for the determination of the organic micropollutants in wastewater samples: (artificial) raw wastewater, wastewater treated using aerated activated sludge method and wastewater from an Upper Silesia wastewater treatment plant. In addition, transformation products of the analytes in the treated wastewater samples were tentatively identified.