Trends of pharmaceutical residues in rivers, suspended particular matter and fish: new insights by new analytical methods for active substances, their metabolites and transformation products : final report
In: Texte 2022, 94
In: Ressortforschungsplan of the Federal Ministry for the Enviroment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection
Since the last decades the increasing detections of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment and their risk potential for the aquatic life have become an urgent issue. Even though many pharmaceuticals are at least to some extent removed by sorption and biotransformation during conventional wastewater treatment, a quasi continues emission via wastewater treatment plants result in a so called "pseudo-persistence". Furthermore, metabolites and transformation products (TPs) can show comparable or even higher activities. Therefore, a higher prioritization of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites as well as TPs as environmental pollutants in the European Water Framework Directive and German surface waters regulation (Oberflächengewässerverordnung) would be desirable. Determination of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment is focused on the liquid phase. However, only a few standardized methods exist. Indeed, physicochemical parameters of some analytes let accumulation in sediment, suspended particular matter and biota seem to be likely. Hence, these matrices could be interesting alternative matrices for monitoring of pharmaceutical residues in surface waters. The aim of this project was the development, optimization, validation and benchmarking of analytical methods for quantification of selected active pharmaceutical ingredients, their metabolites and TPs in different environmental matrices (water, sediment, suspended particular matter and biota). Using these methods occurrence and distribution of the selected analytes in water, sediment, suspended particular matter and biota samples from different locations were determined. Additionally, samples from the German environmental specimen bank were analyzed to investigate possible time trends in concentrations of pharmaceuticals and to demonstrate the potential of the new methods. Finally, recommendations regarding optimal strategies for determination of pharmaceutical residues with different physicochemical properties in water systems were derived from during this project obtained new insights.