engleski

Biodegradation of the albendazole in the water; detection and toxicity assessment of the novel degradation products

For many years pharmaceuticals have been used for medical therapeutic purposes and therefore have been uncontrollably entered in the environment, through excretion, inappropriate disposal, or because of inadequate wastewater treatment plants. Recently they have been recognized as potentially harmful pollutants, so accordingly that the term „emerging contaminants“ has been formed. There is still no sufficient data to predict their behavior and the impact on the environment. That is the reason for increasingly investing in the development of instruments with sufficiently low limits of detection and quantification, to determine the threshold limit value of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Many studies have pointed to possible biodegradation of these compounds, so that can be set in systems for wastewater treatment. Moreover, degradation products may pose additional risk to the environment, therefore their detection and identification is necessary. Accordingly, it is important to investigate the toxicity of such compounds, to be sure what are the possible negative effects they have on the environment. The aim of this study was to optimize the conditions of biodegradation of veterinary pharmaceutical anthelmintic albendazole in a batch reactor by monitoring the physical and chemical parameters in water media. During such process, degradation products that appear are detected by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled with the detector tandem Mass Spectrometry (UPLC- MS/MS), based on a quadrupole–time–of–flight technology (QqTOF). For the toxicity investigation of the samples, the methodology of the zone inhibition was applied. For that puprose, three isolated species characteristic of soil and water were chosen: Aspergillus niger, Streptomyces rimosus, and Bacillus sp. In this study, the biodegradation of albendazole in the water with activated sludge have been achieved whereby the impact of hydrolysis on that process could not be ignored. During the process three degradation products of the albendazole were detected and also their structures were proposed. Also, toxicity of this compounds and associated samples were assessed as low or non-toxic which makes this process non-harmful to the environment.

biodegradation, albendazole, non-target analysis, toxicity

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