Determination and Ecological Risk Assessment of Quinolone Antibiotics in Drinking and Environmental Waters Using Fully Automated Disk-Based SPE Coupled with UPLC–MS/MS

Quinolone antibiotics (QNs) contamination in the aquatic environment is a global public health issue considering their resistance and mobility. In this study, a simple, efficient, and sensitive method was developed for the accurate quantification of fifteen QNs in water using automated disk-based solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). By utilizing a 3M SDB-XC disk to enrich QNs from a 1000 mL water sample, the detection limits were improved to 0.008-0.055 ng/L due to the satisfactory enrichment factors of 897-1136, but only requiring about 60 min per six samples. The linearity of the method ranged from 0.05 to 100 μg/L for the 15 QNs, with correlation coefficients of 0.9992-0.9999, and the recoveries were in the range of 81-114%, with relative standard deviations of 0.2-13.3% (n = 6). The developed method was applicable for the quantification of trace QNs at low ng/L levels in drinking and environmental waters. The results showed that no QNs were detected in tap water, while three and four QNs were detected in the river water of Zhoushan and the seawater of Daiquyang and Yueqing Bay, East China, respectively, with a total concentration of 1.600-8.511 ng/L and 1.651-16.421 ng/L, respectively. Among the detected QNs, ofloxacin (OFL) was the predominant compound in river water, while enrofloxacin (ENR) was predominant in seawater. The risk quotient (RQ) results revealed that QNs posed a low risk to crustaceans and fish, but a low-to-medium risk to algae, and OFL presented the main ecological risk factor in river water, while ENR and CIP in seawater. Overall, the proposed automated disk-based SPE-UPLC-MS/MS method is highly efficient and sensitive, making it suitable for routine analysis of QNs in drinking and environmental waters.