Trace level determination of bisphenol-A in wastewater and sewage sludge by high-performance liquid chromatography and UV detection

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and optimize a simple and economical method for the extraction and determination of bisphenol-A (BPA), using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with ultraviolet (UV) detection at environmentally relevant concentrations in both dissolved and particulate phases. To clean-up and pre-concentrate liquid samples, solid-phase extraction (SPE) method was optimized with regard to pH, volume, washing and elution solvents for high recovery of BPA and good clean-up. For sludge samples, four extraction methods, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), ultrasonication extraction (USE), accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) and high-pressure homogenizer (HPH), were compared for isolation of BPA from activated sludge samples. Analysis was performed by optimized procedures using HPLC–UV. Recoveries of BPA from liquid and solid phases were determined to be 90–105 and 60–90%, respectively. MAE had the highest recovery among examined extraction methods. The method detection limits were 100 ng/L and 100 ng/g dry weight. To validate the method, a mass balance study was conducted with 100 mL spiked mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (VSS) samples from three laboratory-scale porous pot reactors and concentrations of BPA in liquid and solid phases were determined using the optimized conditions. The results had an average 86% overall recovery for all samples.