Rapid detection of multiple class pharmaceuticals in both municipal wastewater and sludge with ultra high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

This work described the development, optimization and validation of an analytical method for rapid detection of multiple-class pharmaceuticals in both municipal wastewater and sludge samples based on ultrasonic solvent extraction, solid-phase extraction, and ultra high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry quantification. The results indicated that the developed method could effectively extract all the target pharmaceuticals (25) in a single process and analyze them within 24 min. The recoveries of the target pharmaceuticals were in the range of 69%–131% for wastewater and 54%–130% for sludge at different spiked concentration levels. The method quantification limits in wastewater and sludge ranged from 0.02 to 0.73 ng/L and from 0.02 to 1.00 μg/kg, respectively. Subsequently, this method was validated and applied for residual pharmaceutical analysis in a wastewater treatment plant located in Beijing, China. All the target pharmaceuticals were detected in the influent samples with concentrations varying from 0.09 ng/L (tiamulin) to 15.24 μg/L (caffeine); meanwhile, up to 23 pharmaceuticals were detected in sludge samples with concentrations varying from 60 ng/kg (sulfamethizole) to 8.55 mg/kg (ofloxacin). The developed method demonstrated its selectivity, sensitivity, and reliability for detecting multiple-class pharmaceuticals in complex matrices such as municipal wastewater and sludge.