Chemometric applications to study the occurrence, ecological risk and bioaccumulation of emerging contaminants in Argentina

PABLO GIORDANO; HÉCTOR GOICOECHEA; LESLY PARADINA FERNÁNDEZ; ROMINA BRASCA; CARLA M. TEGLIA; MARÍA JULIA CULZONI

Estambul

Congreso; XX Euroanalysis; 2019

Nowadays, the concern about the occurrence of traces ofemerging contaminants in the environment has increased [1].These contaminants have impacts on the human health and theaquatic ecosystems, affecting both target and non-target organisms. Even though the presence of these compounds in water andsoil samples has been revealed in several analytical studies worldwide, few reports described the occurrence and bioaccumulation of emerging pollutants in Argentina.During the chromatographic analysis of complex samples,several unknown substances that coelute are usually present. Inthese cases, selectivity may be mathematically restored by applying multivariate data analysis. In particular, the multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) algorithm isuseful to model multiway analytical data of complex systems that,in addition, do not fulfill a trilinear model [2].In the present work, the occurrence and associated ecological risk of fluoroquinolones were investigated in rivers and farmwastewaters of San Luis, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires provinces of Argentina by high-performance liquidchromatography (HPLC) coupled to fast-scanning fluorescencedetection (FSFD), and data modeling by MCR-ALS, and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled totriple quadrupole mass spectrometry detection. The maximumconcentrations of ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, ofloxacin, enoxacinand difloxacin in wastewater were 7.7, 11.9, 1.78, 22.1 and 14.2μg L?1, respectively. In the case of river samples, only enrofloxacin was found at a concentration of 0.97 μg L?1. The individual risk to aquatic organisms associated with the water pollutiondue to fluoroquinolones was higher than 1 for some species. Theproportion of samples classified as high risk was 87.5% for ofloxacin, 63.5% for enrofloxacin, 57.1% for ciprofloxacin and 25% forenoxacin. Secondly, the bioaccumulation and ecotoxicologicaleffects of four antiretrovirals (lamivudine, stavudine, zidovudineand nevirapine) in tadpoles after 48h of exposure in aqueous solutions were studied. The analytical procedure involved a simpleextraction method followed by UHPLC coupled to diode arraydetection (DAD) and MCR-ALS analysis for data processing.Under the studied conditions, the investigated analytes, in specialnevirapine, showed possible bioaccumulation in tadpoles. In addi-