Ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction based on a solidified floating organic droplet for the rapid determination of 19 antibiotics as environmental pollutants in hospital drainage and Gomti river water.

Antibiotics that are used excessively and disposed of improperly are categorized as emerging pollutants. The determination of micropollutants in water with an accurate and precise method is always a big challenge. Hence, a simple, rapid, sensitive, economical and almost eco-friendly method is proposed for the quantitative determination of 19 antibiotics. The proposed method, ultrasound-assisted emulsification microextraction and solidified floating organic droplet coupled with liquid chromatography and triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, has only a 3 min chromatographic run time for the determination of the 19 antibiotics. We report for the first time the use of the developed method for the quantitative determination of the antibiotics in waste water samples with better results in terms of higher sensitivity, cost-effectiveness, better detection limits and a greener approach compared to the earlier reported methods. The limits of detection and quantification were in the range of 0.003-0.236 and 0.013-0.834 µg/L, respectively, with good linearity in the concentration range of 0.01-64.0 µg/L. The correlation coefficient was ≥0.987-0.99 for each analyte. The developed method has been successfully applied for the determination of antibiotics in water samples.