Development of a QuEChERS-based method for the analysis of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in lettuces grown in field-scale agricultural plots irrigated with reclaimed water

The use of reclaimed water for agricultural irrigation is an increasingly common practice, which recently has found its own European regulatory frame. However, the partial removal organic contaminants together with other xenobiotic substances in current wastewater treatment plants leads to occurrence residues such pollutants treated effluents. Wastewater reclamation techniques are thus required provide fitting minimum quality standards set up crops intended human consumption. This work describes development and validation a simple QuEChERS-based extraction liquid chromatography quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (LC-QqLIT-MS/MS) method simultaneous quantitative analysis 55 pharmaceuticals personal care products (PPCPs) lettuces irrigated water. showed good recovery rates (80–120%) low detection limits (0.04–0.8 ng/g dw). In comparison previous analytical methodologies, this was simpler, faster and, most cases, more sensitive. Moreover, first one analysing selected lettuces. proposed applied assess potential transfer urban origin agriculture. case study consisted evaluation lettuce uptake at field scale under two systems, soil compositions, types. Benzophenone-2, 4-hydroxybenzophenone, 1H-benzotriazole, 2-(2-Benzotriazol-2-yl)-p-cresol, nalidixic acid, diclofenac, carbamazepine 10,11-epoxy, N-des-methylvenlafaxine, salicylic acid were transferred all samples. Highest detected values corresponded 4-hydroxybenzophenone (84.1 dw), benzophenone-2 (54.4 (53.8 best combination minimize target from sprinkling by infiltration through reactive barriers, clayey soil.