WP1: Monitoring of pharmaceutical products and organic emerging contaminant (D1.1 Report on screening results)

This deliverable (D1.1) reports the outcomes of Task 1.1 (M1–M6) within Work Package 1 (WP1) of the NBS4AQUAMISSION project. The work was conducted by Aarhus University (AU) and presents the first round of suspect and non-target screening to characterize pharmaceutical products (PPs) and other organic micropollutants (OMPs) at the project's demonstration sites in Denmark (DK), Norway (NO), and Spain (SP). Using Liquid Chromatography-High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (LC-HRMS), a comprehensive suspect list of over 500 compounds was screened against samples from the inlets and outlets of three pilot-scale Nature-based Solutions (NbS) sites. The screening established the baseline chemical profiles for the different NbS systems being studied under the project, supporting objectives SO1 (pollution characterization) and SO3 (NbS performance monitoring). Key Findings: Hundreds of features were detected across all sites, with a consistent group of eight high-frequency, cross-site compounds identified. Three compounds (diclofenac, DEET, and strychnine) are already covered by the existing targeted method. Six new compounds (tilmicosin, tetroxoprim, dipyridamole, protionamide, etofenprox, and chlorcyclizine) are recommended as priority additions to the targeted LC-MS/MS method. Site-specific pollution signatures were observed, with antibiotics and transformation products prominent across all sites, and distinct patterns in DK, NO, and SP. Contents: Executive summary of screening methodology and results Detailed introduction to NBS4AQUAMISSION objectives and demo sites Comprehensive materials and methods for the LC-HRMS workflow and data analysis Results and discussion of detected compounds and prioritization strategy Conclusions and recommendations for method updates Full suspect screening results table in Annex 1 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20826069) This deliverable forms the foundational chemical characterization for the NBS4AQUAMISSION project and provides the basis for updating targeted monitoring methods to evaluate NbS removal efficiency and ecotoxicological risk reduction.