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PHARMACEUTICALS AS ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS: ISSUES REGARDING ANALYSIS
Citation:
JONES-LEPP, T. L. PHARMACEUTICALS AS ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS: ISSUES REGARDING ANALYSIS. Presented at American Society of Mass Spectrometry, Denver, CO, June 01 - 05, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation
Description:
The Clean Water Act (CWA) provides the legislative mandate for the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Quality Program to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. Therefore, a common goal is to maintain water quality integrity and to protect aquatic systems from pollution and degradation of habitat. Over the last several years scientists worldwide have newly identified some traditional chemicals as having biological effects. All chemicals can potentially enter the environment at some point in their lifecycle, and many will undergo structural transformation. This presentation focuses on one subset comprising pharmaceuticals, steroids, and hormones. One of the basic questions being asked with regard to environmental exposure to pharmaceuticals is, what analytical research tools (e.g., mass spectrometric techniques) and methods are necessary to identify trace levels of pharmaceuticals in a variety of environmental matrices--from source waters to drinking water, from sewage biosolids to fish tissue. Because of the many ways in which pharmaceuticals can enter the environment, and their diverse chemical functionalities, we cannot rely on traditional analytical techniques (e.g., LC/UV, or GC/MS) to track the source of environmental exposure. Many new analytical tools are being investigated by scientists worldwide. For example, solid-phase extraction coupled with LC/MS/MS or UPLC-oa-TOF for pharmaceuticals, and GC/MS/MS for steroids and hormones. Other advanced mass spectrometric techniques using high resolution mass spectrometry and accurate mass software have been used for identifying unknowns.