An optimized SPE-LC-MS/MS method for antibiotics residue analysis in ground, surface and treated water samples by response surface methodology- central composite design

BACKGROUND: Antibiotic residues are being constantly identified in environmental waters at low concentration. Growing concern has been expressed over the adverse environmental and human health effects even at low concentration. Hence, it is crucial to develop a multi-residues analytical method for antibiotics to generate a considerable dataset which are necessary in the assessment of aquatic toxicity of environmental waters for aquatic organisms and human health. This work aimed to develop a reliable and sensitive multi-residue method based on high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-linear ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS-MS). The method was optimized and validated for simultaneous determination of four classes of antibiotics including, β-lactam, macrolide, fluoroquinolone and nitro-imidazole in treated, ground and surface water matrices. METHODS: In order to optimize the solid phase extraction process, main parameters influencing the extraction process including, pH, the volume of elution solvent and the amount of Na(4)EDTA were evaluated. The optimization of extraction process was carried out by response surface methodology using central composite design. Analysis of variance was performed for nine target antibiotics using response surface methodology. RESULTS: The extraction recoveries were found to be sensitive to the independent variables of pH, the volume of elution solvent and the amount of Na(4)EDTA. The extraction process was pH-dependent and pH was a significant model term in the extraction process of all target antibiotics. Method validation was performed in optimum operation conditions in which the recoveries were obtained in the range of 50–117% for seven antibiotics in spiked treated and ground water samples and for six antibiotics in spiked river water samples. Method validation parameters in terms of method detection limit were obtained in the range of 1–10 ng/L in treated water, 0.8–10 ng/L in the ground water and 0.8–25 ng/L in river water, linearity varied from 0.95 to 0.99 and repeatability in term of relative standard deviation values was achieved less than 10% with the exception for metronidazole and ceftriaxone. The developed method was applied to the analysis of target antibiotics in treated, ground and surface water samples. CONCLUSIONS: Target antibiotics were analyzed in different water matrices including treated, ground and river water. Seven out of nine antibiotics were detected in Kan River and Firozabad Ditch water samples, although none of them were detected in treated water and ground water samples. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40201-017-0282-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.