Abstract
Nowadays, applying green analytical principles in analytical chemistry without affecting the figures of merit is challenging to perform. One of the most important factors that contribute to greening an analytical method is to avoid the use of hazardous solvents and the tendency to use what is so-called green solvents since most of the chromatographic methods depend on using hazardous solvents. In this work, a green reversed-phase HPLC/DAD method has been developed for the simultaneous detection of three emerging contaminants in environmental water samples that have a highly negative impact on the environment. The simultaneous determination of the three emerging contaminants including diclofenac, carbamazepine, and triclosan, carried out in two different types of water samples, was achieved on Atlantis T3 RP C18 column (250 mm ×4.6 mm i.d×5 µm) using a green isocratic mobile phase; ethanol: water (85:15, v/v) pumped at a flow rate 0.8 mLmin-1. The linear concentration ranges obtained were 20-1000 ng.mL-1, 60-1000 ng.mL-1 and 60-2000 ng.mL-1 for diclofenac, carbamazepine, and triclosan respectively. The limit of detection and limit of quantitation were (3.66, 11.09), (7.51, 22.75) and (7.22, 21.88) ng.mL-1 for diclofenac, carbamazepine, and triclosan, respectively. The method was validated by the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. Finally, two evaluation tools known as Analytical Eco-scale and Green analytical procedure index were adopted to evaluate the greenness of the proposed method. A comparison between the obtained results and the published results was carried out and no significant differences were found.
Highlights
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products' emergence in the environment has become an important issue in the past years
Triclosan, which is commonly employed in personal care products as an antimicrobial agent, is highly toxic since it doesn’t only affect the thyroid hormone homeostasis and the aquatic organisms but it may be converted to more toxic degradation products which are known to be even more toxic endocrine disruptors such as dioxins and chlorine phenolic compounds besides the development of bacterial resistance [7]
HPLC/DAD technique is widely used for its high sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility and to achieve the optimum chromatographic separation without affecting the greenness of the proposed method, different mobile phase compositions and ratios were tested to provide the best separation with optimum selectivity and sensitivity in short run time
Summary
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products' emergence in the environment has become an important issue in the past years. The problem started in 1970 when several toxicological reports demonstrated the impact of these emerging contaminants on aquatic organisms [1, 2]. These emerging contaminants differ from classical pollutants since they are continuously released to the environment via different sources including excretion of pharmaceuticals not completely metabolized by the body or their. Triclosan, which is commonly employed in personal care products as an antimicrobial agent, is highly toxic since it doesn’t only affect the thyroid hormone homeostasis and the aquatic organisms but it may be converted to more toxic degradation products which are known to be even more toxic endocrine disruptors such as dioxins and chlorine phenolic compounds besides the development of bacterial resistance [7]. Carbamazepine was considered as one of the most commonly detected pharmaceuticals in drinking water and was reported to be highly toxic when tested on various embryonic cells [8, 9]
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