Abstract:

A simultaneous analytical method was established for ten selected antibiotics from three categories in pharmaceutical wastewater with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The water samples were enriched and cleaned-up by solid phase extraction cartridges. The types of solid phase extraction cartridges and eluents were optimized by comparing the recoveries of the analytes in water samples under different conditions. The target compounds were separated on an Agilent C18 column (75 mm×2.1 mm, 2.7 μm) with the mobile phases of acetonitrile and 0.2% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution, and then determined by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The results showed that the calibration curves were linear in the range of 0.1-1000 μg/L (r² > 0.995). The limits of detection (LODs, S/N≥3) and the limits of quantification (LOQs, S/N≥10) of the ten compounds were 0.07-4.37 ng/L and 0.22-14.55 ng/L, respectively. The recovery experiments were performed with samples spiked in the range of 0.002-40 μg/L. The recoveries of the target compounds were in the range of 50.4%-114.1% (RSDs≤9.89%, n=3). Based on this analytical method, the raw and treated sewage samples from a pharmaceutical manufacturer wastewater treatment plant in Jiangsu Province were analyzed. Three compounds were detected in the samples from different sewage treatment units in the range of 0.46-1033.60 μg/L. It shows that the method is accurate, reliable, highly sensitive and can be used to analyze the water samples of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plant containing aminoglycosides, spiramycin and fluoroquinolones antibiotics.

Key words: aminoglycosides, antibiotics, fluoroquinolones, pharmaceutical wastewater, spiramycin, ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS)