Abstract
Sucralose is one of the most popular artificial sweeteners worldwide. Due to its high stability, persistence and low removal efficiency in wastewater treatment plants, sucralose has been used as an indicator of wastewater intrusion into aquatic systems. However, its stability has also been a reason for discussion whether sucralose’s presence in surface water could indicate a recent anthropogenic input. Caffeine and acetaminophen have been considered as tracers in human impacted aquatic ecosystems and potentially good indicators of recent anthropogenic inputs into the environment due to their short half-lives in water. Here, a novel, high throughput and sensitive method based on online SPE-LC-HRMS for the determination of caffeine, sucralose and acetaminophen was developed and validated for both fresh and seawater samples and applied to environmental water samples to evaluate the efficiency of these compounds as tracers of aquatic pollution. Caffeine and sucralose were detected in > 70% of samples, while acetaminophen was only detected in 3% of samples above the MDL, demonstrating its limited environmental applicability.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. HRD-1547798. This NSF Grant was awarded to Florida International University as part of the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Program. This is contribution number #963 from the Southeast Environmental Research Center in the Institute of Water and Environment at Florida International University. The authors would like to thank Thermo Scientific for providing chromatography columns used in the study.
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Henderson, A., Ng, B., Landeweer, S. et al. Assessment of Sucralose, Caffeine and Acetaminophen as Anthropogenic Tracers in Aquatic Systems Across Florida. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 105, 351–357 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-020-02942-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-020-02942-6