The presence of pharmaceuticals in wastewater is becoming more and more of a concern for environmental toxicologists.  Studies have shown that concentrations as low as 1 ppb and sometimes 1 ppt can have adverse environmental effects.  Because of the potential for biological effects in various communities, including CSB|SJU, it is critical to determine an efficient method of discovering the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals in wastewater.  The method we developed includes an automated Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) procedure prior to injecting a sample of wastewater into the High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC) and Mass Spectrometer (MS).  Three peaks were identified on the HPLC and MS from wastewater obtained from the St. John's Wastewater Treatment Plant in early June 2013.  Methods of analysis including NMR, GC-MS and IR are being conducted to determine the composition of these three compounds that are in significant concentration in the wastewater.

Using HPLC-MS to identify pharmaceutical compounds found in the University of St. John's wastewater

247th National Meeting (2014)

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