Screening for transformation products and metabolites of pharmaceuticals in treated and untreated waste water

药物是一组有机微污染物，通常从废水处理厂排放到水生系统中。为了在废水处理过程中加强对药物的去除，目前正在研究附加处理过程的效率，例如臭氧氧化。在这种情况下，有必要对药物转化产物的形成和去向进行分析，以评估这些额外处理步骤对环境的潜在影响。此外，应该研究人类药物代谢物在废水处理过程中的行为，因为其中一些代谢物很容易重新转化为母体分子。为此，高效液相色谱与高分辨率质谱联用是一种很有前途的技术。在这里提出的项目中，将重新分析使用真实废水运营的不同试点规模处理厂的测量结果，以仔细选择一组潜在的化学或微生物转化产品和人类代谢物。将从处理技术方面研究这类化合物的存在和行为，并评估在废水等复杂基质中试探性鉴定和定量这类化合物的整体方法的适用性。

Pharmaceuticals are a group of organic micropollutants that is typically emitted from waste water treatment plants into aquatic systems. To enhance the removal of pharmaceuticals during waste water treatment, the efficiency of additional treatment processes, for example ozonation, is currently studied. In this context, the analysis of formation and fate of transformation products from pharmaceuticals is necessary to evaluate the potential environmental impact of such additional treatment steps. Moreover, the behavior of human metabolites of pharmaceuticals during waste water treatment should be studied since some of these metabolites can easily be retransformed into the parent molecule. To this end, liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry is a promising technique. In the project proposed here, measurements from different pilot-scale treatment plants operated with real waste water will be re-analyzed for a carefully selected set of potential chemical or microbiological transformation products and human metabolites. The occurrence and behavior of such compounds will be studied with respect to the treatment technique, and the applicability of the overall method for the tentative identification and quantification of such compounds in a complex matrix like waste water will be evaluated.