Author: Dr. Kim Baughman

An emerging environmental issue in the United States and in Europe is the increasing level of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCP’s) in surface water and in drinking water.  This has been a growing concern among scientists for the last 10 years, and recent media attention has only heightened its profile nationwide.

This area of research is relatively new because, for many of the compounds, the levels in the water are usually quite low; and technology has only recently advanced to the point of allowing their determination.  Most of the research is focusing on two groups of compounds -  PPCP’s and Endocrine Disruptive Compounds (EDC’s).  They are also referred to as Compounds of Emerging Concern (CEC’s) or micro-constituents.

EDC’s are hormonally active compounds that can mimic the hormones of animals.  Sexual abnormalities have been found in ecosystems around the country and this causes some concern about their possible effect on the human population.

In the United States, the U.S. Geological Survey has performed much of the research dealing with measurement of specific compounds in surface water and drinking water.  They have published several studies detailing their findings.  Numerous studies have also been conducted in Europe, most notably the Poseidon Project for the “assessment of technologies for the removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in sewage and drinking water facilities to improve the indirect potable water reuse”.

Specific compounds are identified and determined primarily by two analytical techniques -- gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and high performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS).  The commercialization and vast improvements in LC/MS/MS technology have fueled the recent advancement is this field, as well as other fields, requiring very low level determination of specific compounds in complex matrixes.

Typically, the compounds are extracted from the sample using liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, or solid phase extraction techniques.  The sample is then concentrated to improve the ability to detect trace contaminants. Additional sample clean up may be needed to improve the ability to determine specific compounds.

The U.S. EPA is also looking into this issue, but much of its work is focused on the biological toxicity of surface water samples. Its plan is to use bioassay monitoring to determine if specific streams are hazardous to biological organisms and then to try to identify what compounds are present in the samples and to determine which compounds are contributing to the toxicity.  This is complicated by the potential synergistic properties of some of the compounds.  There may be two different compounds that alone are not very toxic, but when both are present, the biological effect can increase many fold.

A significant amount of analytical testing will be needed over the next decade to help assess the extent of the contamination throughout the United States.  Presently, very few commercial laboratories have the capabilities needed for these complex determinations.  Microbac Laboratories, Inc. is currently implementing the methodologies for measurement of many of the endocrine disruptors and the pharmaceuticals and personal care products in surface water and in drinking water.  With our experienced professional staff, and with the planned installation of our third LC/MS/MS along with dozens of GS/MSs, we have the technology and the capacity to expand rapidly into this new area of research and testing.

For more information, please contact: microbac_info@microbac.com.