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Application of non-targeted and suspect screening workflows on surface and drinking water samples using reverse phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography
Citation:
Batt, A., L. Brunelle, S. Glassmeyer, E. Furlong, D. Kolpin, M. Mills, AND D. Alverez. Application of non-targeted and suspect screening workflows on surface and drinking water samples using reverse phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography. Presented at Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Louisville, KY, KY, November 12 - 16, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract describes the content of a poster that will be presented at the SETAC North America meeting in November 2023. The poster will provide details for ongoing non-targeted chemical analysis method development work.
Description:
The analysis of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) has been an ongoing priority due to their potential for adverse effects on human health and wildlife. With many tens of thousands of chemicals in use today, prioritizing specific chemicals or mixtures of chemicals to be targeted for analysis has become increasingly difficult. Multiple non-targeted chemical screening tools were developed to look for a broad range of possible CECs present in environmental waters using liquid chromatography and quadrupole/time-of-flight mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization (LC-QTOF-ESI) in both positive and negative ionization modes. Two chromatographic techniques were evaluated: (1) reverse phase C18 and (2) hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) used to capture the more polar CECs that may be present in water. Optimization of the HILIC method required more extensive method development and troubleshooting to obtain reliable separation. Using the developed workflows, a suspect screening library of roughly 1,400 possible CECs, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, illicit drugs/drugs of abuse, and various anthropogenic markers was made with experimentally collected data to compliment the non-targeted workflow. These standards were analyzed using both chromatographic methods and in both ionization modes, to provide insight on which classes of common environmental contaminants are best captured with these approaches. The developed non-targeted methods were also applied to environmental water samples collected with polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS), including surface water receiving wastewater effluent discharge, downstream untreated drinking water, and treated drinking water. Over 30 of the suspect screening chemicals were found in surface and/or drinking water samples, and the results from the reverse phase and HILIC non-targeted analyses were compared. The applications of these methods could serve as a first step in characterizing the chemical space covered when utilizing different chromotography methods on environmental water samples.