Abstract
Passive sampling is a rapidly developing technology which offers significant advantages over traditional grab sampling and it is being widely used for the monitoring of pollutants in different environments. In the present study, an analytical methodology for passive sampling of psychopharmaceuticals was evaluated and applied on contaminated locality in Czech Republic.
Four pharmaceutical drugs (amitriptyline, dosulepin, chlorprothixene, butamirate) and five compounds which are either used during drug manufacturing or are created as by-products were detected in groundwater in the range from nanograms up to hundreds of milligrams per litter. A biodegrading potential of ligninolytic fungus Pleurotus ostreatus was tested towards a mixture of all detected contaminants.
The initial concentration of individual compounds in the mixture was 2 mg L-1. Five compounds were totally or partially degraded (>52%) during the in vivo cultivation of P. ostreatus on complex liquid medium.
Applied acute toxicity tests with Vibrio fischeri indicated the potential formation of metabolites that exhibited higher toxicity than the one or more original substances. EC50 values in the acute toxicity of V. fischeri for individual substances ranged from 5.45 mg L-1 to 131.98 mg L-1.
The metabolites are studied using MS techniques.