Sorption of selected pharmaceuticals and pesticides on different river sediments

Abstract

In the present work, the sorption ability of 17 pharmaceutical compounds, two metabolites, and 15 pesticides (34 target compounds in total) onto four different river sediments was investigated separately. Selected compounds present the most frequently prescribed pharmaceuticals in human and animal medicine and the most frequently used pesticides in agriculture. Their presence into the surface, ground, and waste waters was confirmed into the numerous papers in literature, as well as their presence into the river sediments (for some of them). However, investigations of their sorption onto the river sediments, as major natural protection from potential pollution of ground water by them is missing. Sorption in this study was investigated onto river sediments taken from rivers in the Republic of Serbia, where only less than 10% of total generated waste water passes through mainly basic treatment processes. Experiments were based on batch equilibrium procedures and obtained solutions were analyzed by previously developed and validated sensitive high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) analytical methods. All results were modeled by Freundlich isotherms. Obtained results have shown that Kf coefficient values are in correlation with organic carbon content. Kd sorption coefficient values were relatively low and ranged in wide ranges for almost all compounds and sediments. That implicates on the conclusion that capacities of the investigated sorbents are not large for those compounds.