Monitoring, Assessing and Modelling Concentrations and Fluxes of Xenobiotics in Luxembourgish Water Courses - XENEAU
Institution
CRP Gabriel Lippmann
Partenaire(s) :
Technical University of Berlin (D) ,
University of Aalborg (DK) ,
Vision on Technology Belgium (B)
Du : 01/01/2009
Au : 31/12/2010
Budget : 347 000,00€
Contact(s) :
Krein Andreas
Summary
The overall goal of the project is to help people prepare for substance flows of selected emerging substances under present and changing environmental conditions by providing analytical techniques, a monitoring strategy, analytical results for Luxembourg, and information about runoff generation and fluxes. In addition, the project will improve our knowledge on the impact of xenobiotics on living organisms. In the XENEAU project, the development of an extraction method on Hydrophilic Lipophilic Balance cartridges constituted a significant improvement in the extraction of sulfonamides, tetracyclines, hormones and anti-inflammatories.
Recoveries were acceptable compared to literature; however, our “multi-residue” method was easier to carry out and less time and material consuming, compared to separated extractions by classes of compounds, which also use different cartridges and more solvents. Solid-phase extraction with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry resulted in detection limits ranging from 0.3 to 2.0 ng L-1, allowing the determination of pharmaceuticals in highly polluted wastewaters, storm waters and groundwater.
The analysis of pharmaceuticals by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry is a useful tool to trace their elimination from the wastewater treatment plants to the aquatic environment. The concentration and transport of xenobiotics in surface waters depend on hydraulic conditions including rainfall pattern and sewage overflow, on the properties of the substances themselves, including sorption, degradation, and metabolism. The analysis of flood events using the rainfall pattern, the hydrograph, and dissolved pharmaceutical chemographs provides a good insight into the temporal structure of flood events.
The corresponding anthropogenic sources show a high temporal and spatial variability that is caused by different rainfall patterns and distributions, and the different characteristics (e.g. retention capacities) of the combined sewer systems. We show that the combined sewer overflows deliver an important part of the dissolved pharmaceuticals into the river network. So far, the yeast estrogen screen has been applied for some of the samples. The measured steroid values were converted to estrogenic activity by taking into account the relative potency of each chemical compared to the reference, estradiol. This method considers the relative affinity of the steroids for the hormone receptor.
By first comparisons with chemical analysis for steroid hormones we obtained a similar ranking for the majority of sites with high or low estrogenic activity. The measured estrogenic activity in the surface water is regularly at levels > 5 ng/L estradiol equivalents which might be of concern to reproductive success of native fish populations.
Refereed Scientific Publications
- Pailler, J.-Y.; Guignard, C.; Meyer, B.; Iffly, J.-F.; Pfister, L.; Hoffmann, L. & Krein, A. (2009): Behaviour and fluxes of dissolved antibiotics, analgesics and hormones during flood events in a small heterogeneous catchment in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. - Water, Air and Soil Pollution 203, 1-4, 79 - 98.
- Pailler, J.-Y.; Krein, A.; Pfister, L.; Hoffmann, L. & Guignard, C. (2009): Solid phase extraction coupled to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of sulfonamides, tetracyclines, analgesics and hormones in surface water and wastewater in Luxembourg. - Science of the Total Environment 407, 4736 - 4743.
Other Publications: ---
Figure 1: Automatic Water Sampler
Figure 2: Automatic Water Sampler Programming