Calibration of a microporous polyethylene tube passive sampler for polar organic compounds in wastewater effluent

Joseph E Clokey; Darryl W Hawker; Rory Verhagen; Sara Ghorbani Gorji; Emma R Knight; Kevin V Thomas; Sarit L Kaserzon

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162497

Calibration of a microporous polyethylene tube passive sampler for polar organic compounds in wastewater effluent

Sci Total Environ. 2023 May 20:874:162497. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162497. Epub 2023 Feb 28.

Authors

Joseph E Clokey¹, Darryl W Hawker², Rory Verhagen³, Sara Ghorbani Gorji³, Emma R Knight³, Kevin V Thomas³, Sarit L Kaserzon³

Affiliations

¹ The University of Queensland, Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia. Electronic address: j.clokey@uq.edu.au.
² Griffith University, School of Environment and Science, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia.
³ The University of Queensland, Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia.

PMID: 36863593
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162497

Abstract

Water resources are vulnerable to contamination from polar organic compounds (POCs) originating from sources such as wastewater effluent. Two configurations of a microporous polyethylene tube (MPT) passive sampler were investigated for the time-integrative detection and quantification of POCs in effluent. One configuration contained the polymeric reversed phase sorbent Strata-X (SX) and the other Strata-X suspended in agarose gel (SX-Gel). These were deployed for up to 29 days and analysed for forty-nine POCs including pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) together with illicit drugs. Complementary composite samples were collected on days 6, 12, 20 and 26 representing the previous 24 h. Thirty-eight contaminants were detected in composite samples and MPT extracts, with MPT sampling rates (R_s) for 11 pesticides and 9 PPCPs/drugs ranging from 0.81 to 10.32 mL d^-1 in SX and 1.35-32.83 mL d^-1 in SX-Gel. Half-times to equilibrium of contaminants with the SX and SX-Gel equipped samplers ranged from two days to >29 days. MPT (SX) samplers were also deployed at 10 wastewater treatment effluent discharge sites across Australia for 7 days (again with complementary composite samples), to validate the sampler performance under varying conditions. Extracts from these MPTs detected 48 contaminants in comparison with 46 in composite samples, with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 138 ng mL^-1. An advantage of the MPT was preconcentration of contaminants, resulting in extract levels often markedly above instrument analytical detection limits. The validation study demonstrated a high correlation between accumulated contaminant mass in the MPTs and wastewater concentrations from composite samples (r² > 0.70, where concentrations in composite samples were > 3× LOD). The MPT sampler shows promise as a sensitive tool for detecting POCs at trace levels in wastewater effluent and also quantifying these levels if temporal concentration variations are not significant.

Keywords: Illicit drugs; Pesticides; Pharmaceuticals; Sampling rate; Water quality.