Today, the widespread use of medications, especially various types of analgesics, is resulting in increased levels of these drugs in the wastewater streams entering septic systems and wastewater treatment plants. It is important, therefore, to determine the efficacy of these means of sewage treatment in removing therapeutic drugs before they reach streams, lakes, and groundwater. We have therefore embarked on a project to measure the levels of three commonly-used analgesics, ibuprofen, naproxen, and salicylate, in both influent and effluent streams of one municipal watstewater treatment plant on the Quittapahilla Creek in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. The project involves concentrating the analytes using solid phase extraction (SPE), derivatizing the acidic drugs as methyl esters, and analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. We have successfully derivatized the analgesics using boron trifluoride/methanol, and have developed a SIM program to separate and quantitate the derivatives. We are now involved in perfecting the SPE method for use in analyzing the water samples for the analgesics that they contain.

Analysis of analgesics in the Quittapahilla Creek watershed

249th National Meeting (2015)

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