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。为了提高废水处理过程中药物的去除率，目前正在研究其他处理工艺（例如臭氧化）的效率。在这种情况下，有必要分析药物转化产物的形成和归宿，以评估这些额外处理步骤对环境的潜在影响。此外，在废水处理过程中，药物的人体代谢产物的行为应该进行研究，因为这些代谢产物中的一些可以很容易地重新转化为母体分子。为此，液相色谱法结合高分辨率质谱法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的废水运行的不同中试规模处理厂的测量结果，以获得一组精心选择的潜在化学或微生物转化产物和人体代谢产物。这些化合物的发生和行为将研究相对于处理技术，并将评估的适用性的整体方法的尝试性识别和定量的这种化合物在一个复杂的矩阵，如废水。

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.