Drugs In Environmental Samples Research Articles

Pretreatment Techniques for Drug Residues in the Environment before their Quantitation

Background: More and more chemical substances are being released to the environment. Therefore, environmental problems caused by different pollutants have attracted the long-term attention. Objective: Sample pretreatment have always been the bottleneck restricting the development of residual drugs analysis, so the latest development in various pretreatment technologies and current status for different residual drugs in environmental samples are reviewed. Method: For systematic and explicit description, all of the contents were elucidated and summarized in a series of independent parts. In each part, it started from the research background or a conceptual framework and then specific examples were introduced to illustrate the theme. Finally, the important conclusions were drawn and its future was out looked after the discussion about related key problems appearing in each mentioned research. Results: The whole review was composed of four parts, and 111 papers were cited in total. Six figures were used to depict progress in potential pretreatment technologies for residual drugs in environment, and nine tables were employed to summarize pretreatment and analysis results for various residual drugs in environment. Conclusion: This review placed emphasis on the development of pretreatment techniques of residual drugs in a specific manner, leading to meaningful and valuable related information to some related fields and thus promotes further research and application of related methods. The deep exploration for key scientific problems is the driving force to their effective detection and strict control.

Sample preparation and instrumental methods for illicit drugs in environmental and biological samples: A review

Detection of illicit drugs in the environmental samples has been challenged as the consumption increases globally. Current review examines the recent developments and applications of sample preparation techniques for illicit drugs in solid, liquid, and gas samples. For solid samples, traditional sample preparation methods such as liquid-phase extraction, solid-phase extraction, and the ones with external energy including microwave-assisted, ultrasonic-assisted, and pressurized liquid extraction were commonly used. The sample preparation methods mainly applied for liquid samples were microextraction techniques including solid-phase microextraction, microextraction by packed sorbent, dispersive solid-phase extraction, dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, hollow fiber-based liquid-phase microextraction, and so on. Capillary microextraction of volatiles and airborne particulate sampling were primarily utilized to extract illicit drugs from gas samples. Besides, the paper introduced recently developed instrumental techniques applied to detect illicit drugs. Liquid chromatograph mass spectrometry and gas chromatograph mass spectrometry were the most widely used methods for illicit drugs samples. In addition, the development of ambient mass spectrometry techniques, such as desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and paper spray mass spectrometry, created potential for rapid in-situ analysis.

Supramolecular Solvent-Based Microextraction of Selected Anticonvulsant and Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs from Sediment Samples.

The increase in the production and consumption of pharmaceuticals increases their presence in the global environment, which may result in direct threats to living organisms. For this reason, there is a need for new methods to analyze drugs in environmental samples. Here, a new procedure for separating and determining selected drugs (diclofenac, ibuprofen, and carbamazepine) from bottom sediment and water samples was developed. Drugs were determined by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with an ultraviolet detector (UHPLC-UV). In this work, a universal and single-step sample treatment, based on supramolecular solvents (SUPRAS), was proposed to isolate selected anticonvulsants and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) from sediment samples. The following parameters were experimentally selected: composition of the supramolecular solvent (composition THF:H2O (v/v), amount of decanoic acid), volume of extractant, sample mass, extraction time, centrifugation time, and centrifugation speed. Finally, the developed procedure was validated. A Speedisk procedure was also developed to extract selected drugs from water samples. The recovery of analytes using the SUPRAS procedure was in the range of 88.8–115%, while the recoveries of the Speedisk solid-phase extraction procedure ranged from 81.0–106%. The effectiveness of the sorption of the tested drugs by sediment was also examined.

Preparation of highly hydrophilic magnetic nanoparticles with anion-exchange ability and their application for the extraction of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in environmental samples.

Diallyldimethylammonium chloride modified magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by the "thiol-ene" click chemistry reaction. Diallyldimethylammonium chloride rendered the material plenty of quaternary ammonium groups, and thus the excellent aqueous dispersibility and anion-exchange capability. The novel material was then used as the magnetic solid-phase extraction sorbent to extract eight non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs from water samples. Combined with high-performance liquid chromatography and ultraviolet detection, under the optimal conditions, the developed method exhibited wide linearity ranges (1-1000, 2-1000, and 5-1000ng/mL) with recoveries of 88.0-108.6% and low limits of detection (0.3-1.5ng/mL). Acceptable precision was obtained with satisfactory intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations of 0.4-4.4% (n=3) and 1.1-5.5% (n=3), respectively. Batch-to-batch reproducibility was acceptable with relative standard deviations<9.7%. The hydrophilic magnetic nanoparticle featured with quaternary ammonium groups showed high analytical potential for acidic analytes in environmental water samples.

Determination of Diazepam and Clonazepam in Natural Water – a Voltammetric Study

AbstractThe differential pulse adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetry (DP‐AdsCSV) employing the hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE) was used towards the determination of two psychotropic drugs in environmental samples. Voltammetric and experimental conditions to Clonazepam (CLO) and diazepam (DIAZ) were optimized and the methods were in‐house validated. Accumulation potentials were −0.3 V to CLO and −0.6 V to DIAZ at 120 s of accumulation time. Pulse amplitude, pulse time and scan rate were 80 mV, 20 ms and 25 mV s−1 to CLO and 100 mV, 20 ms and 40 mV s−1 to DIAZ, respectively. Recovery tests were done in three different concentrations to evaluate methods’ accuracy and the results were from 88±6 to 120±13 %. In precision tests, standard deviations were lower than 15 % for both methods. Goods limits of quantification 0.65 and 0.27 μg L−1 to CLO and DIAZ respectively were achieved without pre‐concentration steps such as SPE, etc. Voltammetry employing HMDE was first used for the determination of CLO and DIAZ in natural water. Natural samples were spiked and recovery tests confirmed the applicability of the methods developed. Nine samples from Parana state, Brazil, were analyzed and CLO and DIAZ values were below the limits of detection in all samples.

Detection of veterinary drug residues in surface waters collected nearby farming areas in Galicia, North of Spain

The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment has become a matter of concern in the last decade due to potential risks posed to non-target organisms and the potential for unintended human exposure via food chain. This concern has been driven by a high detection frequency for drugs in environmental samples; these substances are produced in large quantities and are used in both veterinary and human medicine, leading to deposition and potential effects in the environment. However, few studies have focused on the presence of pharmaceuticals in rural areas associated with farming activities in comparison to urban areas. The aim of this study is to investigate the occurrence of pharmaceutically active compounds in surface waters collected from urban and rural areas in northwestern Spain. A monitoring study was conducted with 312 river water samples analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Positive detection of pharmaceuticals was made for 51 % of the samples. Decoquinate, sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxypyridazine and trimethoprim were the drugs most frequently detected, being present in more than 10 % of the samples. The sampling sites located downstream of the discharge points for wastewater treatment plants yielded the highest number of positive samples, 13 % of the positive samples were detected in these sites and 38 % of the samples collected near the collection point of a drinking water treatment plant were positive.

Matrix effects and recovery calculations in analyses of pharmaceuticals based on the determination of β-blockers and β-agonists in environmental samples

In recent years substantial progress has been made in analytical methods for determining pharmaceutical residues in environmental samples. Although much work has attempted to establish the influence of sample matrix complexity on results through the determination of matrix effects (ME), extraction efficiency (EE) and absolute recovery of analytes (AR), comparison of these parameters is very complicated because different authors use different methods to obtain them. Moreover, there are few literature data describing the influence of aqueous matrices (tap water and waste water) on results obtained with GC–MS methods. For these reasons, the main aims of the present study were: (1) to critically review the determination of matrix effects and recovery parameters using the two most common techniques for analyzing drugs in environmental samples: gas and liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry or tandem mass spectrometry (GC–MS, GC–MS/MS and LC–MS, LC–MS/MS); (2) to postulate a uniform method for determining ME, EE and AR using GC techniques; (3) to investigate the influence of different aqueous matrices on the solid-phase extraction, derivatization and final determination of drugs using GC. β-Blockers and β-agonists, drugs commonly found in the environment, were chosen as model compounds for this investigation. The values of ME, EE and AR obtained were compared with analogous (or similar) data obtained by other researchers using LC–MS measurements. All the results confirmed that GC–MS analyses are much less sensitive to the complexity of sample matrices than LC–MS, so GC–MS measurements appear to be a very good alternative to LC–MS methods of determining pharmaceutical residues in environmental samples.

Determination of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in environmental samples by chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are a group of pharmaceutical compounds widely used in human health care and often found in the aquatic environment, with their metabolites. After an introduction that describes the general problem of drug contamination, the properties of NSAIDs, and environmental risk assessment, this review surveys the chromatographic and electrophoretic methods of analysis in use today for monitoring the most important representatives of this pharmaceutical class in different environmental samples.