Ebara Engineering Review

Archive for the year 2003

No.201 Oct. 2003 Issue

Development of a Method for Quantitative Analysis of Estrogens in Sewage Water by LC/MS/MS

by Yumiko NAKAMURA, Kensuke ONDA, Chikako TAKATOH, & Akiko MIYA

Sewage treatment plant effluents are suspected to supply natural estrogenic hormones (17β-estradiol (E2), estrone (E1), and estriol (E3)) to environmental water. As estrogens could be strong endocrine disruptors, it seems to be very important to investigate the behavior of estrogens in sewage treatment plants. To achieve this objective, an analytical method to quantify the estrogens in sewage samples was required. In this study, an analytical procedure based on solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) has been developed. Good linearity of the calibration curve (r>0.998) was obtained in the concentration range from 0.2 ng/ml to 125 ng/ml for E1, from 0.5 ng/ml to 125 ng/ml for E2 and E3; and the detection limits were 0.2 ng/l for E1, 0.5 ng/l for E2 and E3. The recoveries of standard samples spiked to sewage water were 98.9-102.5%. Using this method, the estrogens in a municipal sewage treatment plant and those in a domestic sewage treatment plant were quantified. The obtained data were compared with the data obtained by ELISA or the estrogen-like activity obtained by yeast assay. The concentrations of E2 by ELISA were generally higher than those by this method. The contribution of E1 was comparably high, especially in the effluenc samples. Estrogens were found to contribute greatly to estrongen-like activity of sewage samples.

Keywords
17β-estradiol, Estrone, Estriol, Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry, Sewage water