Citation:

MOTTALEB, M. A. AND W. C. BRUMLEY. ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY OF PHARMACEUTICAL AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS: THE SEPARATIONS FOCUS TURNS TO POLAR ANALYTES. Trends in Chromatography. Research Trends, Trivandrum, India, 2:11-29, (2006).

Impact/Purpose:

The research focused on in the subtasks is the development and application of state-of the-art technologies to meet the needs of the public, Office of Water, and ORD in the area of Water Quality. Located In the subtasks are the various research projects being performed in support of this Task and more in-depth coverage of each project. Briefly, each project's objective is stated below.

Subtask 1: To integrate state-of-the-art technologies (polar organic chemical integrative samplers, advanced solid-phase extraction methodologies with liquid chromatography/electrospray/mass spectrometry) and apply them to studying the sources and fate of a select list of PPCPs. Application and improvement of analytical methodologies that can detect non-volatile, polar, water-soluble pharmaceuticals in source waters at levels that could be environmentally significant (at concentrations less than parts per billion, ppb). IAG with USGS ends in FY05. APM 20 due in FY05.

Subtask 2: Coordination of interagency research and public outreach activities for PPCPs. Participate on NSTC Health and Environment subcommittee working group on PPCPs. Web site maintenance and expansion, invited technical presentations, invited articles for peer-reviewed journals, interviews for media, responding to public inquiries.

Subtask 3: To apply state-of-the-art environmental forensic techniques to the recognition and characterization of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. There is a need for high sensitivity and for a powerful method of structural characterization, advanced mass spectrometric and chromatographic techniques to be employed to meet the challenge of emerging pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, agents of sabotage, and explosives. Ongoing efforts continue to identify previously unrecognized pollutants from a range of problematic samples having importance to regional and state contacts.

Subtask 4: To provide the Agency with a set of practical analytical methods for the selective and sensitive determination of selenium species (organic, inorganic, volatile and non volatile forms) in multiple media to accurately assess and if necessary control the risk of selenium exposure to organisms. This includes development of optimal extraction, digestion, separation and detection approaches.

Subtask 5: To develop and apply an analytical method that can extract and detect synthetic musks. The extent of exposure may be determined by measuring levels of synthetic musks from their potential source (communal sewage effluent). This subtask ends in FY05 with the deliverable of APM 21. Future applications to biosolids will be covered in subtask 6.

Subtask 6: Application, and improvement, of previously in-house developed sensitive, robust, and green, methodologies regarding the use of urobilin and sterols as a possible markers of sewage contamination.

Subtask 7: Adaptation and improvement of previously developed in-house methods, for PPCPs (e.g., antibiotics and musks) to solid materials (e.g. biosolids, sediments).

Subtask 8: Study of the presence of personal care products, incombustible organic compounds from the direct-piping of small engines exhaust in Lake Tahoe, and lake deposition of airborne pollutants from industrial activity

Description:

Within the scope of a number of emerging contaminant issues in environmental analysis, one area that has received a great deal of public interest has been the assessment of the role of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as stressors and agents of change in ecosystems as well as their role in unplanned human exposure. The relationship between personal actions and the occurrence of PPCPs in the environment is clear-cut and comprehensible to the public. In this overview, we attempt to examine the separations aspect of the analytical approach to the vast array of potential analytes among this class of compounds. We also highlight the relationship between these compounds and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and between PPCPs and EDCs and the more traditional environmental analytes such as the persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Although the spectrum of chemical behavior extends from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, the current focus has shifted to moderately and highly polar analytes. Thus, emphasis on HPLC and LC/MS has grown and MS/MS has become a detection technique of choice with either electrospray ionization or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization. This contrasts markedly with the bench mark approach of capillary GC, GC/MS and electron ionization in traditional environmental analysis. The expansion of the analyte list has fostered new vigor in the development of environmental analytical chemistry, modernized the range of tools applied, and has revealed the need for awareness of the parallel developments in pharmaceutical analysis and biomedical analysis. We place particular emphasis on the separations that undergird successful analysis of PPCPs and the final separation/detection that provides the primary data upon which risk assessments and other determinations will ultimately be based. We suggest that the new emphasis on PPCPs has now defined a turning point in environmental analysis and set the stage for a significant new challenge that we briefly explore in this appraisal of the field.

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