Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing concern in the scientific community regarding the presence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water samples and the potential risks to humans from exposure to traces of pharmaceuticals via drinking water. These have been present in these matrices for a long time, but the importance of this fact has only been elucidated in the past few years. The increased interest in this field arises from the fact that they are not considered under the legislation which regulates water quality. However, they may be introduced in future legislation, because many organizations, e.g. the World Health Organization, have elaborated the need for more systematic studies on the transport, occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in drinking water sources. One important limitation of such studies is the availability of sufficiently sensitive and reliable analytical methods for these investigations. Moreover, standardization of the protocols for the sampling and the analysis of pharmaceuticals is required, in order to better facilitate the comparison of data. This review summarizes the analytical methods for the determination of pharmaceutical residues in drinking water samples. The current methodology and future prospects, as well the capabilities, the potential and the limitations of the analytical protocols that are used for determining pharmaceuticals in drinking water are described and discussed in detail. These methods have been used to monitor not only the native compounds and some of their metabolites, but also the formation of degradation products during water treatment.
Keywords: Drinking water, trace analysis, pharmaceutical residues, analytical methods, extraction techniques, GC-MS and LC-MS analysis, monitoring.
Graphical Abstract
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