Simultaneous Determination of Pharmaceutical and Pesticides Compounds by Reversed Phase High Pressure Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A reversed phase HPLC method has been developed for the simultaneous separation and quantification of a mixture, constituted by a total of thirteen selected pollutants: pharmaceutical products and others compounds including one hormone, a pesticide, a natural marker and solvents. For each pollutant, the calibration curve shows a good linearity (r² ≥ 0.998) over the concentration range of 1.0 × 10-5 – 5 × 10-8 mol/L. The limit of detection at 230 nm is ranging from 5.0 × 10-6 to 4.0 × 10-5 mg/mL, whereas the limit of quantification is in the range 1.8 × 10-5 - 1.2 × 10-4 mg/mL depending on the selected pollutant. The separation of the complex mixture was performed on a Hypersil Gold column 100 mm × 2.1 mm (dp=3 μm) using a multi-step linear gradient at 210, 230 and 280 nm. This method is well adapted for the detection of pharmaceutical compounds or micropollutants at low concentrations as a routine analysis but also as an alternative method to sophisticated ones like HPLC-MS or HPLC-fluorescence.