EPA Method 1694: Analysis of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Water

EPA Method 1694 was published in December 2007 as a screening method for the analysis of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in environmental samples, including water (wastewater, surface water and drinking water). The PPCPs include common prescription drugs, veterinary drugs, over‐the‐counter medicines, dietary supplements and other consumer products. This application note outlines a SPE procedure using UCT’s Enviro-Clean^® HL DVB polymeric sorbent for the determination of 64 PPCPs in water according to EPA Method 1694. The SPE procedure was optimized with the aim of obtaining acceptable recoveries of the PCPPs using a single extraction step rather than the multiple extraction procedures outlined in the original EPA method. The LC-MS/MS analysis was also streamlined and uses only two methods (ESI+ and ESI-) and a single Selectra^® DA HPLC column instead of the four methods and two HPLC columns used in the original method.