Analysis of chiral pharmaceutical residues in influent and effluent samples at racemic and enantiomeric level using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

In this work, two different chromatographic methods for seasonal monitoring of pharmaceutical residue in wastewater samples were developed. In the case of enantiomeric separation of selected compounds, LC-MS technique combining with vancomycin based chiral stationary phase was used. The performance of chiral analysis enabled to monitor the pharmaceutical contamination at the enantiomeric level. The d-SPE procedure was developed as sample preparation step and compared with SPE protocol in terms of recoveries and environmental friendliness. Due to satisfactory recoveries (around 60%) and greener character assessed using GAPI and AGREE tools, d-SPE-LC-MS/MS method was applied in further analysis. The concentration of detected enantiomers in wastewater collected in different seasons did not exceed 10 mu g L-1, whereas the evaluated EF values were generally in the range of 0.4-0.7. Moreover, no significant changes in EF values after wastewater treatment were observed.