DLLME: An Innovative Approach for Rapid and Low Cost Determination of Psychoactive Substances and Antibiotics in Wastewater

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been demonstrated to be a valuable tool in the assessment of the health and well-being of a community, with the detection of various indicators by analysing the influent wastewater coming in Wastewater Treatment Plants. The accurate identification and quantification of analytes and their metabolites associated with daily life facilitate the extraction of conclusions regarding trends and the prediction of future consumption. The analysis of wastewater necessitates a methodology that is capable of cleaning the sample and preconcentrating the analytes, which are present in low concentrations. A highly promising pretreatment method is DLLME due to its combination of rapidity and reduced cost. The objective of this study is to reveal the capabilities of DLLME in Wastewater Epidemiology. An optimized DLLME method was developed for the monitoring of two significant classes of compounds: namely, psychoactive substances and antibiotics. This method was developed through the selection of the most suitable conditions and was subsequently validated. The validated method was applied to real samples from two different periods of time, and the results were statistically compared with the corresponding ones from the validated SPE method.