Proposal of an HPLC/UV/FLD Screening Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Ten Antibiotics in Environmental Waters

An HPLC-UV/FLD method for simultaneous detection of ten antibiotics in surface waters was developed. Antibiotics were extracted from water using solid phase extraction. An Atlantis T-3 column was used with acetonitrile and 0.05% trifluoro acetic acid as a mobile phase for separation, with a total running time of 45 min. Signal detection was performed at 280 nm; fluoroquinolones were additionally quantified by fluorescence detection. Validation parameters such as linearity, recovery and precision were evaluated. The limits of detection (LOD) in river waters were in the range 0.1-1.3 mu g/L for antibiotics detected by UV, and 0.039 and 0.073 mu g/L for fluoroquinolones detected by FLD. LOD are sufficiently low to consider this method as a first alternative for HPLC-MS methods that will allow alerting for the presence of antibiotics in surface waters. This screening method is rapid, sensitive, reproducible and economical.