Development of a multiclass method to quantify phthalates, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products in river water using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole hybrid Orbitrap mass spectrometry

Rationale: The organic micropollutants such as phthalates, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products (PPPCPs) enter the surface water through various routes. The aim of this study is to develop a sensitive and efficient method to identify and quantify 26 PPPCPs found in river water with acceptable accuracy and precision using a liquid chromatograph hyphenated with quadrupole hybrid Orbitrap mass spectrometry (Q-Orbitrap-MS) in a single chromatographic run. Method: The organic micropollutants were extracted from river water by solid-phase extraction (SPE) using hydrophilic-lipophilic balance sorbent and analyzed using an ultra-high performance liquid chromatograph (UHPLC) equipped with C18 stationary phase for chromatographic separation. The targeted mass experiments were conducted in a Q-Orbitrap-MS system in positive and negative electrospray ionization mode. Results: The method was found to be linear in the concentration range of 1-125 ng/L with coefficient of determination lying in the range of 0.995-0.999. The method achieved limit of quantification in the range of 0.41-1.72 ng/L, and method recovery measured at three different concentrations was found to be in the range of 75-115%. Intra-and interday precision expressed as percent relative standard deviation was found to be <15%. Matrix effect was found to be in the range of 83.5-109.79%. The matrix match calibration was used for quantification of PPPCPs in river water sample. The method performance was evaluated by analyzing real samples collected from Ganga River, and the concentrations of 21 analytes were found to be in the range of 0.76-9.49 ng/L for pharmaceuticals, 1.49-8.67 ng/L for phthalates, and 0.9-7.58 ng/L for personal care products. Conclusions: The present method was found to be precise, sensitive, and rapid to determine 26 PPPCPs including phthalates in river water samples using SPE-UHPLCQ-Orbitrap-MS