Alcohol consumption has been increasing in the last years and it has become a sociological problem due its derived health and safety problems. Ethyl sulfate is a secondary metabolite of the alcohol degradation that is excreted through the urine (0.010-0.016%) after alcohol ingestion and it is quite stable in water. In this study, a new methodology to determine ethyl sulfate by ion-pair liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was developed. Different ion-pairs and additives were tested directly in the sample extracts or in the mobile phase. The best ion-pair was set up adding 0.5M of tributylamine and 0.1% of formic acid to the sample. The limit of quantification was 0.3 μg L(-1) and the intra-day and inter-day precision of the method were ≤ 2.8 and ≤ 3.0%, respectively. Good linearity (r(2)<0.999) and low matrix effect (<30% corrected by using internal isotopically labelled internal standard) were achieved. The sampling campaign was from 4th to 20th March of 2014 covering the festivity of Fallas (15th to 19th March). Ethyl sulfate was determined in all influents of the 3 wastewater treatment plants (Pinedo I, Pinedo II and Quart-Benàger) belonging to Valencia and surrounding area. Ethyl sulfate concentrations ranged from 1.46 to 19.85 μg L(-1) and alcohol consumption ranged from 1.07 to 56.11 mL day(-1) inhab(-1), being the highest value of alcohol consumption determined during Fallas. This study presents a reliable and alternative method to traditional ones to determine alcohol consumption by population that provides real-time information of alcohol consumption.
Keywords: Alcohol consumption; Ethanol biomarker; Ethyl sulfate; Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry; Sewage epidemiology.
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