Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCP) are environmental contaminants of growing concern. In order to properly assess the effects of such compounds on our environment, especially their disruption of endocrine function in mammals and fish, it is necessary to accurately monitor their presence in the environment. The diversity of chemical properties of these compounds makes method development challenging.  Here we present results of PPCP findings in water samples collected in different geographies and from different type of water, including drinking water, creeks, rivers, lakes, sea etc. All samples were analyzed by direct injection Liquid Chromatography coupled to tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). Two analytical methods were used. A method which enables the quantitation of PPCP at low ppt levels using Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) and their identification using full scan MS/MS with mass spectral library searching using a hybrid triple quadrupole linear ion trap LC-MS/MS system (QTRAP 6500). In addition a high resolution and accurate mass LC/MS/MS system (TripleTOF 5600+) was used to further explore collected samples for unexpected analytes. Data processing turned out to be the bottleneck of the general unknown screening methodology. New and advanced data processing tools where used to automatically identify unexpected and unknown pollutants.

Screening and quantitation of targeted and non-targeted environmental pollutants in water samples

247th National Meeting (2014)

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