Analysis of commonly prescribed analgesics using

Abstract

Environmental context Pharmaceuticals find their way to wastewater mainly through hospital and industrial effluents, and in turn affect all living organisms. The routine analysis of different water sources is tedious and of high cost. Our work presents a safe, low-cost method for analysing water samples to ensure proper cleanup of water and its suitability for human and animal use. Rationale Analgesics are one of the top classes of commonly prescribed drugs, and used over the counter. Therefore, they are most likely to be detected in wastewater samples coming from hospital and industrial effluents. Methodology This study focused on developing an in-silico UV spectroscopic manipulation of variant signal nature of low cost, using the methods of: advanced amplitude centring (AAC), mean centring of ratio spectra (MCR), successive derivative subtraction (SDS) and continuous wavelet transformation (CWT), for the determination of a ternary mixture of three analgesics: paracetamol (PCM), diclofenac (DCF) and ibuprofen (IBU) in water samples after sample cleanup using dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME). Results The proposed methods were compared to those reported in terms of greenness, simplicity and effectiveness using the greenness assessment tools (Eco-scale & AGREE) and white analytical chemistry (WAC) tool. The AAC method showed the highest scores: an Eco-scale of 71, AGREE of 0.55 and RGB of 84.4 when compared to the reported methods. Discussion The AAC method was applied effectively for the study of surface water samples and industrial effluents with high accuracy and precision. Thus, real water samples could be routinely analysed with minimal cost to ensure proper cleanup of water and its suitability for human and animal use.