Determination of estrogen pollutants in real water sample by HPLC-UV after solid phase extraction.

4 Abstract Estrogens are considered to belong to chemicals that negatively affect the endocrine system, even if present at very low concentrations. They are discharged into environment as a result of an increasing application of drugs etc. This work is focused on the separation and quantification of five estrogens, namely estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (βE2), 17α-estradiol (αE2), 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) and estriol (E3) in natural water samples by HPLC-UV method. The chromatographic system consisted of a C18 stationary phase (SunFire® C18, 150 x 4.6 mm, octadecyl bounded to silica gel, particle size 5 µm) and binary mobile phase of acetonitrile/water in various ratios in isocratic separation mode. The effect of acetonitrile content in the mobile phase and flow rate of the mobile phase on retention and separation parameters was tested. Under the optimized separation conditions (acetonitrile/water 40/60 (v/v), 1.3 ml/min), all the compounds were baseline resolved and eluted within 15 min. These experimental conditions were applied to the calibration measurements which were carried out within the concentration range from 0.001 to 1 mg/ml. Limits of detection (LOD) and limits of quantification (LOQ) for the individual estrogens and their mixture (standards dissolved in methanol) were determinated. The detection..