Occurence of some pharmaceuticals and hormones in waters of Aksaray

Pharmaceuticals and synthetic hormones are widely used around the world to maintain human and animal health. There is a growing concern that these compounds pass through sewage-treatment plants and enter the environment for potential harmful effect on living things. In this study, the occurrence of nine pharmaceuticals and hormones in hospital wastewater, sewage wastewater, raw waters used for drinking water, and treated water were studied at December 2010, April and June 2011. Analyses were carried out by using the Agillent 6460 Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (LC-MS/MS) with Jet Stream Technology. Samples for injection were prepared both with solid phase extraction (SPE) and without extraction. All of nine target emerging organic pollutants (EOC), Acetominophen, Caffeine, Carbamazepine, Codeine, Methyltestosterone, Metoprolol, Propanolol, Stanozolol, Testosterone were detected in wastewater, source water, and finished water, or all. The most target compounds were detected in both hospital and sewage wastewater samples rather than the drinking water samples. The most frequently detected compounds in samples were Acetominophen and Caffeine with their concentrations increased up to 160 ?g/L in sewage wastewater while their concentrations samples were significantly lower than those in raw water (0-19.75 ng/L). Results of the investigation showed that waters has polluted with these EOC in wastewater and reached to humans with drinking water although quantities of EOC has decreased with several mechanisms. Additional treatment processes such as advanced oxidation process in addition to conventional treatment process must be investigated and applied to eliminate these pollutants from water sources.