Determination of endocrine disrupting chemicals in activated sludge.
A solid phase extraction (SPE)-gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS) for the simultaneous separation and determination of six endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) including phenolic compounds (4-t-OP,OP,NP,BPA) and steroids (EE2,E3) from wastewater and activated sludge was described.The extraction efficiency of 3 SPE cartridges was compared,it was found that the Bond Elut-Plexa with the gradient of polarity on the polymer surface was more suitable for 6 selected EDCs.The optimized method was further verified by performing spiking experiments in liquid and solid phase in activated sludge matrices respectively,and recovery was larger than 80.5% and 84.8%.The established method was applied to the determination of target EDCs in activated sludge samples taken from a wastewater treatment plant in Shanghai.