Quantitative screening and prioritization based on UPLC-IM-Q-TOF-MS as an alternative water sample monitoring strategy

What Approaches Should be Used to Prioritize Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products for Research on Environmental and Human Health Exposure and Effects?

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are released from multiple anthropogenic sources and thus have a ubiquitous presence in the environment. The environmental exposure and potential effects of PPCPs on biota and humans has aroused concern within the scientific community and the public. Risk assessments are commonly conducted to evaluate the likelihood of chemicals including PPCPs that pose health threats to organisms inhabiting various environmental compartments and humans. Because thousands of PPCPs are currently used, it is impractical to assess the environmental risk of all of them due to data limitations; in addition, new PPCPs are continually being produced. Prioritization approaches, based either on exposure, hazard, or risk, provide a possible means by which those PPCPs that are likely to pose the greatest risk to the environment are identified, thereby enabling more effective allocation of resources in environmental monitoring programs in specific geographical locations and ecotoxicological investigations. In the present review, the importance and current knowledge concerning PPCP occurrence and risk are discussed and priorities for future research are proposed, in terms of PPCP exposure (e.g., optimization of exposure modeling in freshwater ecosystems and more monitoring of PPCPs in the marine environment) or hazard (e.g., differential risk of PPCPs to lower vs. higher trophic level species and risks to human health). Recommended research questions for the next 10 years are also provided, which can be answered by future studies on prioritization of PPCPs. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:488-501. © 2022 SETAC.

Highly sensitive determination of multiple pesticide residues in foods by supercritical fluid chromatography coupled with ion mobility quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

This experiment aimed to establish a green, simple and highly sensitive method (supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) coupled with ion mobility quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (IM-Q-TOF/MS)) for the detection of multiple pesticides in foods. During the experiments, several important SFC parameters, such as stationary phase, modifier, make-up solution, back-temperature and back-pressure were optimized. Here, single-field collision cross section (CCS) values and multifield CCS values of 20 pesticides were examined by IM-Q-TOF/MS as highly specific parameters with excellent experimental precision. In addition, based on accurate mass matching and fragment ion comparison, mass fragments were obtained by IM-Q-TOF/MS, which elucidated the regularities of compound structure and characteristic fragment ions. Under the optimized conditions, satisfactory linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9989) and recoveries (79.60 % to 112.97 %) were obtained. The intra- and interday precisions were favorable, with RSDs lower than 4.91 and 7.65 %, respectively. Additionally, the method showed low limits of detection (0.1-8.8 ng/mL). The proposed method has been successfully applied to the highly sensitive detection of phenylurea herbicide, triazine herbicides, organophosphorus pesticide, pyrethroid insecticide and acaricide in yam and potato.

Are preserved coastal water bodies in Spanish Mediterranean basin impacted by human activity? Water quality evaluation using chemical and biological analyses

The Spanish Mediterranean basin is particularly susceptible to climate change and human activities, making it vulnerable to the influence of anthropogenic contaminants. Therefore, conducting comprehensive and exhaustive water quality assessment in relevant water bodies of this basin is pivotal. In this work, surface water samples from coastal lagoons or estuaries were collected across the Spanish Mediterranean coastline and subjected to target and suspect screening of 1,585 organic micropollutants by liquid chromatography coupled to ion mobility separation and high resolution mass spectrometry. In total, 91 organic micropollutants could be confirmed and 5 were tentatively identified, with pharmaceuticals and pesticides being the most prevalent groups of chemicals. Chemical analysis data was compared with data on bioanalysis of those samples (recurrent aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activation, and estrogenic receptor (ER) inhibition in wetland samples affected by wastewater streams). The number of identified organic contaminants containing aromatic rings could explain the AhR activation observed. For the ER antagonistic effects, predictions on estrogenic inhibition potency for the detected compounds were used to explain the activities observed. The integration of chemical analysis with bioanalytical observations allowed a comprehensive overview of the quality of the water bodies under study.

Wide-scope screening of pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs and their metabolites in the Amazon River

Only a limited number of households in the Amazon are served by sewage collection or treatment facilities, suggesting that there might be a significant emission of pharmaceuticals and other wastewater contaminants into freshwater ecosystems. In this work, we performed a wide-scope screening to assess the occurrence of pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs and their metabolites in freshwater ecosystems of the Brazilian Amazon. Our study included 40 samples taken along the Amazon River, in three of its major tributaries, and in small tributaries crossing four important urban areas (Manaus, Santarém, Macapá, Belém). More than 900 compounds were investigated making use of target and suspect screening approaches, based on liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry with ion mobility separation. Empirical collision-cross section (CCS) values were used to help and confirm identifications in target screening, while in the suspect screening approach CCS values were predicted using Artificial Neural Networks to increase the confidence of the tentative identification. In this way, 51 compounds and metabolites were identified. The highest prevalence was found in streams crossing the urban areas of Manaus, Macapá and Belém, with some samples containing up to 30 - 40 compounds, while samples taken in Santarém showed a lower number (8 - 11), and the samples taken in the main course of the Amazon River and its tributaries contained between 1 and 7 compounds. Most compounds identified in areas with significant urban impact belonged to the analgesics and antihypertensive categories, followed by stimulants and antibiotics. Compounds such as caffeine, cocaine and its metabolite benzoylecgonine, and cotinine (the metabolite of nicotine), were also detected in areas with relatively low anthropogenic impact and showed the highest total prevalence. This study supports the need to improve the sanitation system of urban areas in the Brazilian Amazon and the development of follow-up studies aimed at quantifying exposure levels and risks for Amazonian freshwater biodiversity.

Suspect and non-target screening: the last frontier in environmental analysis

Suspect and non-target screening (SNTS) techniques are arising as new analytical strategies useful to disentangle the environmental occurrence of the thousands of exogenous chemicals present in our ecosystems. The unbiased discovery of the wide number of substances present over environmental analysis needs to find a consensus with powerful technical and computational requirements, as well as with the time-consuming unequivocal identification of discovered analytes. Within these boundaries, the potential applications of SNTS include the studies of environmental pollution in aquatic, atmospheric, solid and biological samples, the assessment of new compounds, transformation products and metabolites, contaminant prioritization, bioremediation or soil/water treatment evaluation, and retrospective data analysis, among many others. In this review, we evaluate the state of the art of SNTS techniques going over the normalized workflow from sampling and sample treatment to instrumental analysis, data processing and a brief review of the more recent applications of SNTS in environmental occurrence and exposure to xenobiotics. The main issues related to harmonization and knowledge gaps are critically evaluated and the challenges of their implementation are assessed in order to ensure a proper use of these promising techniques in the near future.

Target, suspect and non-target screening analysis from wastewater treatment plant effluents to drinking water using collision cross section values as additional identification criterion

The anthropogenic entry of organic micropollutants into the aquatic environment leads to a potential risk for drinking water resources and the drinking water itself. Therefore, sensitive screening analysis methods are needed to monitor the raw and drinking water quality continuously. Non-target screening analysis has been shown to allow for a more comprehensive investigation of drinking water processes compared to target analysis alone. However, non-target screening is challenging due to the many features that can be detected. Thus, data processing techniques to reduce the high number of features are necessary, and prioritization techniques are important to find the features of interest for identification, as identification of unknown substances is challenging as well. In this study, a drinking water production process, where drinking water is supplied by a water reservoir, was investigated. Since the water reservoir provides surface water, which is anthropogenically influenced by wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents, substances originating from WWTP effluents and reaching the drinking water were investigated, because this indicates that they cannot be removed by the drinking water production process. For this purpose, ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with an ion-mobility high-resolution mass spectrometer (UPLC-IM-HRMS) was used in a combined approach including target, suspect and non-target screening analysis to identify known and unknown substances. Additionally, the role of ion-mobility-derived collision cross sections (CCS) in identification is discussed. To that end, six samples (two WWTP effluent samples, a surface water sample that received the effluents, a raw water sample from a downstream water reservoir, a process sample and the drinking water) were analyzed. Positive findings for a total of 60 substances in at least one sample were obtained through quantitative screening. Sixty-five percent (15 out of 23) of the identified substances in the drinking water sample were pharmaceuticals and transformation products of pharmaceuticals. Using suspect screening, further 33 substances were tentatively identified in one or more samples, where for 19 of these substances, CCS values could be compared with CCS values from the literature, which supported the tentative identification. Eight substances were identified by reference standards. In the non-target screening, a total of ten features detected in all six samples were prioritized, whereby metoprolol acid/atenolol acid (a transformation product of the two β-blockers metoprolol and atenolol) and 1,3-benzothiazol-2-sulfonic acid (a transformation product of the vulcanization accelerator 2-mercaptobenzothiazole) were identified with reference standards. Overall, this study demonstrates the added value of a comprehensive water monitoring approach based on UPLC-IM-HRMS analysis.

The use of UHPLC, IMS, and HRMS in multiresidue analytical methods: A critical review

Residue chemists who analyse pesticides in vegetables or veterinary drugs in animal-based food are currently facing a situation where there is a requirement to detect more and more compounds at lower and lower concentrations. Conventional tandem quadrupole instruments provide sufficient sensitivity, but speed and selectivity appear as future limitations. This will become an even larger issue when there is a need to not only detect active compounds but also their degradation products and metabolites. This will likely lead to a situation in which the conventional targeted approach must be expanded or augmented by a certain non-targeted strategy. High-resolution mass spectrometry provides such capabilities, but it frequently requires an additional degree of selectivity for the unequivocal confirmation of analytes present at trace levels in highly complex and variable food matrices. The hyphenation of ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography with ion mobility and high-resolution mass spectrometry provides analytical chemists with a new tool for performing such a demanding multiresidue analysis. The objective of this paper is to investigate the benefits of the added ion mobility dimension as well as to critically discuss the current limitations of this commercially available technology.

Identification of unknowns in industrial wastewater using offline 2D chromatography and non-target screening

Industrial wastewater is characterised by a complex composition of trace organic compounds (TrOC) in a difficult matrix. The identification of unknown pollutants is of high interest. On the one hand to ensure protection of the environment by elucidating contaminations and on the other hand to protect the biological treatment step in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Due to the high variability of the matrix, the identification of compounds of interest is very time consuming and often unsuccessful. To overcome this limitation, a prioritisation method was developed to identify so called 'known unknowns', i.e. compounds frequently detected but not identified, as prioritised compounds in industrial wastewater. The method based on an offline two-dimensional (offline 2D) liquid chromatography (LC) approach with ultra violet (UV) detection in the first and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) in the second dimension. As a proof of concept, an identification process of one 'known unknown' is described. The compound was identified as a dichlorodinitrophenol isomer by retention time in two dimensions, UV spectrum, exact mass, mass fragmentation and ¹H- NMR. As prioritisation method, the offline 2D LC in combination with non-target analysis provides a powerful workflow to determine tentative structures of unknown organic compounds in industrial wastewater.