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      Detection of pharmaceuticals in wastewater effluents—a comparison of the performance of Chemcatcher® and polar organic compound integrative sampler

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          Abstract

          Chemcatcher ® and POCIS passive sampling devices are widely used for monitoring polar organic pollutants in water. Chemcatcher ® uses a bound Horizon Atlantic™ HLB-L sorbent disk as receiving phase, whilst the POCIS uses the same material in the form of loose powder. Both devices ( n = 3) were deployed for 21 days in the final effluent at three wastewater treatment plants in South Wales, UK. Following deployment, sampler extracts were analysed using liquid chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Compounds were identified using an in-house database of pharmaceuticals using a metabolomics workflow. Sixty-eight compounds were identified in all samplers. For the POCIS, substantial losses of sorbent (11–51%) were found during deployment and subsequent laboratory analysis, necessitating the use of a recovery factor. Percentage relative standard deviations varied (with 10 compounds exceeding 30% in both samplers) between individual compounds and between samplers deployed at the three sites. The relative performance of the two devices was evaluated using the mass of analyte sequestered, measured as an integrated peak area. The ratio of the uptake of the pharmaceuticals for the POCIS versus Chemcatcher ® was lower (1.84x) than would be expected on the basis of the ratio of active sampling areas (3.01x) of the two devices. The lower than predicted uptake may be attributable to the loose sorbent material moving inside the POCIS when deployed in the field in the vertical plane. In order to overcome this, it is recommended to deploy the POCIS horizontally inside the deployment cage.

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          Most cited references39

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          A review on emerging contaminants in wastewaters and the environment: current knowledge, understudied areas and recommendations for future monitoring.

          This review identifies understudied areas of emerging contaminant (EC) research in wastewaters and the environment, and recommends direction for future monitoring. Non-regulated trace organic ECs including pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs and personal care products are focused on due to ongoing policy initiatives and the expectant broadening of environmental legislation. These ECs are ubiquitous in the aquatic environment, mainly derived from the discharge of municipal wastewater effluents. Their presence is of concern due to the possible ecological impact (e.g., endocrine disruption) to biota within the environment. To better understand their fate in wastewaters and in the environment, a standardised approach to sampling is needed. This ensures representative data is attained and facilitates a better understanding of spatial and temporal trends of EC occurrence. During wastewater treatment, there is a lack of suspended particulate matter analysis due to further preparation requirements and a lack of good analytical approaches. This results in the under-reporting of several ECs entering wastewater treatment works (WwTWs) and the aquatic environment. Also, sludge can act as a concentrating medium for some chemicals during wastewater treatment. The majority of treated sludge is applied directly to agricultural land without analysis for ECs. As a result there is a paucity of information on the fate of ECs in soils and consequently, there has been no driver to investigate the toxicity to exposed terrestrial organisms. Therefore a more holistic approach to environmental monitoring is required, such that the fate and impact of ECs in all exposed environmental compartments are studied. The traditional analytical approach of applying targeted screening with low resolution mass spectrometry (e.g., triple quadrupoles) results in numerous chemicals such as transformation products going undetected. These can exhibit similar toxicity to the parent EC, demonstrating the necessity of using an integrated analytical approach which compliments targeted and non-targeted screening with biological assays to measure ecological impact. With respect to current toxicity testing protocols, failure to consider the enantiomeric distribution of chiral compounds found in the environment, and the possible toxicological differences between enantiomers is concerning. Such information is essential for the development of more accurate environmental risk assessment.
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            Global Synthesis and Critical Evaluation of Pharmaceutical Data Sets Collected from River Systems

            Pharmaceuticals have emerged as a major group of environmental contaminants over the past decade but relatively little is known about their occurrence in freshwaters compared to other pollutants. We present a global-scale analysis of the presence of 203 pharmaceuticals across 41 countries and show that contamination is extensive due to widespread consumption and subsequent disposal to rivers. There are clear regional biases in current understanding with little work outside North America, Europe, and China, and no work within Africa. Within individual countries, research is biased around a small number of populated provinces/states and the majority of research effort has focused upon just 14 compounds. Most research has adopted sampling techniques that are unlikely to provide reliable and representative data. This analysis highlights locations where concentrations of antibiotics, cardiovascular drugs, painkillers, contrast media, and antiepileptic drugs have been recorded well above thresholds known to cause toxic effects in aquatic biota. Studies of pharmaceutical occurrence and effects need to be seen as a global research priority due to increasing consumption, particularly among societies with aging populations. Researchers in all fields of environmental management need to work together more effectively to identify high risk compounds, improve the reliability and coverage of future monitoring studies, and develop new mitigation measures.
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              The fate of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs), metabolites and illicit drugs in a WWTW and environmental waters.

              A large number of emerging contaminants (ECs) are known to persist in surface waters, and create pressure on wastewater treatment works (WWTW) for their effective removal. Although a large database for the levels of these pollutants in water systems exist globally, there is still a lack in the correlation of the levels of these pollutants with possible long-term adverse health effects in wildlife and humans, such as endocrine disruption. The current study detected a total of 55 ECs in WWTW influent surface water, 41 ECs in effluent, and 40 ECs in environmental waters located upstream and downstream of the plant. A list of ECs persisted through the WWTW process, with 28% of all detected ECs removed by less than 50%, and 18% of all ECs were removed by less than 25%. Negative mass balances of some pharmaceuticals and metabolites were observed within the WWTW, suggesting possible back-transformation of ECs during wastewater treatment. Three parental illicit drug compounds were detected within the influent of the WWTW, with concentrations ranging between 27.6 and 147.0 ng L(-1) for cocaine, 35.6-120.6 ng L(-1) for mephedrone, and 270.9-450.2 ng L(-1) for methamphetamine. The related environmental risks are also discussed for some ECs, with particular reference to their ability to disrupt endocrine systems. The current study propose the potential of the pharmaceuticals carbamazepine, naproxen, diclofenac and ibuprofen to be regarded as priority ECs for environmental monitoring due to their regular detection and persistence in environmental waters and their possible contribution towards adverse health effects in humans and wildlife.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                gary.fones@port.ac.uk
                Journal
                Environ Sci Pollut Res Int
                Environ Sci Pollut Res Int
                Environmental Science and Pollution Research International
                Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Berlin/Heidelberg )
                0944-1344
                1614-7499
                13 May 2020
                13 May 2020
                2020
                : 27
                : 22
                : 27995-28005
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.4827.9, ISNI 0000 0001 0658 8800, Natural Resources Wales, Faraday Building, , Swansea University, ; Singleton Campus, Swansea, SA2 8PP UK
                [2 ]GRID grid.4701.2, ISNI 0000 0001 0728 6636, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, , University of Portsmouth, ; Burnaby Road, Portsmouth, PO1 3QL UK
                [3 ]GRID grid.4701.2, ISNI 0000 0001 0728 6636, School of Biological Sciences, , University of Portsmouth, ; King Henry Building, King Henry I Street, Portsmouth, PO1 2DY UK
                [4 ]GRID grid.4701.2, ISNI 0000 0001 0728 6636, School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, , University of Portsmouth, ; White Swan Road, Portsmouth, PO1 2DT UK
                Author notes

                Responsible Editor: Ester Heath

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1999-0716
                Article
                9077
                10.1007/s11356-020-09077-5
                7334249
                32405945
                1b6557be-ef1a-4031-b91b-50c6de71527d
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 20 March 2020
                : 27 April 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: University of Portsmouth
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

                General environmental science
                passive sampling,chemcatcher®,pocis,pharmaceuticals,screening,wastewater effluent

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