Citation

Skaggs CS, Logue BA. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/etc.5453

PMID

35920352

Abstract

Active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) contamination of water sources, including opioid contamination, has become more common in recent years. While drinking water treatment plants help mitigate API infiltration, API contamination remains in some drinking water sources. Therefore, the ability to detect APIs at ultratrace concentrations is vital to ensure safe drinking water. A method for the ultratrace determination of fentanyl, hydrocodone, and codeine in drinking water via direct injection (DI) and high-performance liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was developed and validated. Drinking water samples (10 mL) are simply syringe-filtered and then analyzed by HPLC-MS/MS. A wide linear range (0.25 to 100 ng/L) and ultratrace limits of detection (80, 150 and 500 pg/L for fentanyl, hydrocodone, and codeine, respectively) were features of the method. The method produced excellent aggregate accuracies of 90 - 115%, and precisions of ≤11%, for the three analytes tested. This method was used to test drinking water samples from 53 U.S. locations, with hydrocodone and codeine detected in approximately 40% of the samples tested at concentrations between 0.3 and 20 ng/L. Codeine was detected at higher concentrations than hydrocodone (up to 7.3x) for each sample containing these APIs. Fentanyl was not detected in any field drinking water sample. The detection of opioids in most U.S. drinking water samples is cause for concern and these levels should continue to be monitored to ensure they do not become a threat to human health. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. © 2022 SETAC.

Language: en

Keywords

opioids; drinking water; liquid chromatography; pollutants