Assessing the presence of enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin in piggery wastewater and their adsorption behaviour onto solid materials, with a newly developed chromatographic method

Veterinary antibiotics could enter the environment after the application of manure or farm wastewater on soil as fertilizer. In this study, a UPLC-MS/MS analytical method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of enrofloxacin (ENR) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) at environmental relevant concentrations in piggery wastewater, piggery wastewater solids, agricultural soil and ground water with good performance characteristics. The method recovery for ENR and CIP was 94.2 and 89.9% in the filtered piggery wastewater, 81.3 and 82% in the wastewater solid material, 78.1 and 76.8% in the soil and 95.6 and 97.3% in the ground water. The Limit of Detection (LOD) and Limit of Quantification (LOQ) for ENR were 21 and 64 ng L−1 and for CIP was 18 and 54 ng L−1, respectively. The method was implemented to monitor ENR and CIP in the wastewater of a piggery facility in Cyprus which applied anaerobic treatment before the final disposal of the reclaimed water. The highest antibiotic concentrations were measured in the wastewater samples collected from the nursery, where ENR is continuously used, with average concentration 31.4 μg L−1 for ENR and 16.0 μg L−1 for CIP. After the anaerobic digester, the two antibiotics were found only on the solid matter of the treated wastewater with an average concentration of 1.7 μg kg−1 for ENR and 1.0 μg kg−1 for CIP. The antibiotics adsorption at pH = 7 on clay soil, quartz sand and on solid matter isolated from the piggery wastewater was found to be higher than 95% for all solid materials. The concentration of the antibiotics in soil samples taken from a field where reclaimed piggery wastewater was applied for 10 years and in samples of groundwater from a nearby well was found for all samples below the LOD.The authors are grateful to the owners and the staff of the CAFO for all their support and assistance during the samplings and for the data on the function of the unit and the wastewater collection and treatment system which were kindly provided as well as the data on the administered doses of enrofloxacin