Ecotoxicological risk assessment and seasonal variation of some pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the sewage treatment plant and surface water bodies (lakes)

This paper reports the seasonal variation and environmental quality control data for five fingerprint pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) (acetaminophen ciprofloxacin, caffeine, irgasan and benzophenone) in the influent and the effluent of the sewage treatment plant (STP) and surface water bodies (six major lakes) in and around Nagpur, one of the “A class city” in the central India over a period of 1 year. The target compounds were analysed using developed offline solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC-PDA) method. All the five PPCPs were found in the influent, whereas four were found in the effluent of the STP. However, in the surface water bodies, three PPCPs were detected in all the seasons. Above PPCPs were present in the concentration range of 1–174 μg L−1 in the surface water bodies, 12–373 μg L−1 in the influent and 11–233 μg L−1 in the effluent of the STP. Amongst the five PPCPs, caffeine was found to be in higher concentration as compared to others. The seasonal trends indicate higher concentrations of PPCPs in summer season and lowest in the rainy season. Additionally, physico-chemical characterisations (inorganic and organic parameters) of the collected samples were performed to access the anthropogenic pollution. Ecotoxicological risk assessment was done to appraise the degree of toxicity of the targeted compounds. Hazard quotient (HQ) values were found to be < 1 indicating no adverse effect on the targeted organism.