Antibiotics have historically been used to treat illnesses brought on by dangerous germs in both humans and animals. The rapidly growing aquaculture business uses a variety of antibiotic classes, which could leave antibiotic residues in the nearby aquatic environment and cause the products to increase bacterial resistance. The objective of this study was to optimise, validate, and apply a solid-phase extraction (SPE) method in conjunction with liquid chromatography (LC)-LTQ/Orbitrap mass spectrometry to identify the most frequently used antibiotics in waters sampled from freshwater and saltwater fish farms in Greece. The approach was validated under ideal circumstances, with recoveries ranging from 57.7% for sulfamethoxazole in river water to 95.8% for florfenicol in river water. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) 15.9%, with technique quantification limits in all cases between 0.25 and 10 ng•L1. By using the suggested methods, it was possible to detect traces of trimethoprim and oxytetracycline. The risk was determined to be medium to low in all cases by computing the risk quotient (RQ) for three trophic levels (8.013 106 RQ 0.496) or the mixture RQ (0.005 RQ 0.682), which was the final step in assessing the environmental risk presented by the conventional drugs found.
KeywordsConventional Drugs ; Aquaculture; SPE
Published Date: 2023-07-31; Received Date: 2023-07-01
