Screening of Lake Sediments for Emerging Contaminants by Liquid Chromatography Atmospheric Pressure Photoionization and Electrospray Ionization Coupled to High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

We developed a multiresidue method for the target and suspect screening of more than 180 pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, biocides, additives, corrosion inhibitors, musk fragrances, UV light stabilizers, and industrial chemicals in sediments. Sediment samples were freeze-dried, extracted by pressurized liquid extraction, and cleaned up by liquid-liquid partitioning. The quantification and identification of target compounds with a broad range of physicochemical properties (log K(ow) 0-12) was carried out by liquid chromatography followed by electrospray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) coupled to high resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry (HRMS/MS). The overall method average recoveries and precision are 103% and 9% (RSD), respectively. The method detection limits range from 0.010 to 4 ng/g(dw), while limits of quantification range from 0.030 to 14 ng/g(dw). The use of APPI as an alternative ionization source helped to distinguish two isomeric musk fragrances by means of different ionization behavior. The method was demonstrated on sediment cores from Lake Greifensee located in northeastern Switzerland. The results show that biocides, musk fragrances, and other personal care products were the most frequently detected compounds with concentrations ranging from pg/g(dw) to ng/g(dw), whereas none of the targeted pharmaceuticals were found. The concentrations of many urban contaminants originating from wastewater correlate with the highest phosphorus input into the lake as a proxy for treatment efficiency. HRMS enabled a retrospective analysis of the full-scan data acquisition allowing the detection of suspected compounds like quaternary ammonium surfactants, the biocide triclocarban, and the tentative identification of further compounds without reference standards, among others transformation products of triclosan and triclocarban.