Screening of Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Surface Water and Wastewater Effluents, Assisted by the Persistency-Mobility-Toxicity Criteria
Rosa Montes,
Sandra Méndez,
Nieves Carro,
Julio Cobas,
Nelson Alves,
Teresa Neuparth,
Miguel Machado Santos,
José Benito Quintana,
Rosario Rodil
Affiliations
Rosa Montes
Institute of Research on Chemical and Biological Analysis (IAQBUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Constantino Candeira SN, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Sandra Méndez
Institute of Research on Chemical and Biological Analysis (IAQBUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Constantino Candeira SN, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Nieves Carro
INTECMAR—Technological Institute for the Monitoring of the Marine Environment in Galicia, Peirao de Vilaxoán S/N, 36611 Vilagarcía de Arousa, Spain
Julio Cobas
INTECMAR—Technological Institute for the Monitoring of the Marine Environment in Galicia, Peirao de Vilaxoán S/N, 36611 Vilagarcía de Arousa, Spain
Nelson Alves
Group of Endocrine Disruptors and Emerging Contaminants, CIMAR/CIIMAR—LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Avenida General Norton de Matos S/N, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal
Teresa Neuparth
Group of Endocrine Disruptors and Emerging Contaminants, CIMAR/CIIMAR—LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Avenida General Norton de Matos S/N, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal
Miguel Machado Santos
Group of Endocrine Disruptors and Emerging Contaminants, CIMAR/CIIMAR—LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Avenida General Norton de Matos S/N, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal
José Benito Quintana
Institute of Research on Chemical and Biological Analysis (IAQBUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Constantino Candeira SN, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Rosario Rodil
Institute of Research on Chemical and Biological Analysis (IAQBUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Constantino Candeira SN, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are compounds of diverse origins that have not been deeply studied in the past which are now accruing growing environmental interest. The NOR-Water project aimed to identify the main CECs and their sources in the water environment of Northern Portugal–Galicia (located in northwest Spain) transnational region. To achieve these goals, a suspect screening analytical methodology based on the use of liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) was applied to 29 sampling sites in two campaigns. These sampling sites included river and sea water, as well as treated wastewater. The screening was driven by a library of over 3500 compounds, which included 604 compounds prioritized from different relevant lists on the basis of the persistency, mobility, and toxicity criteria. Thus, a total of 343 chemicals could be tentatively identified in the analyzed samples. This list of 343 identified chemicals was submitted to the classification workflow used for prioritization and resulted in 153 chemicals tentatively classified as persistent, mobile, and toxic (PMT) and 23 as very persistent and very mobile (vMvP), pinpointing the relevance of these types of chemicals in the aqueous environment. Pharmaceuticals, such as the antidepressant venlafaxine or the antipsychotic sulpiride, and industrial chemicals, especially high production volume chemicals (HPVC) such as ε-caprolactam, were the groups of compounds that were detected at the highest frequencies.
