SURFACTANTS - NON-BIODEGRADABLE, SIGNIFICANT POLLUTANTS IN SEWAGE-TREATMENT PLANT EFFLUENTS - SEPARATION, IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATIONBY LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY, FLOW-INJECTION ANALYSIS MASS-SPECTROMETRY AND TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY

Effluents from biological waste water treatment plants contain mainly non-biodegradable polar compounds. Methods for the detection, identifi cation and determination of these hardly or non-eliminatable polar org anic compounds are described. Flow-injection analysis (FIA) and liquid chromatographic (LC) separation on an analytical column by mass spect rometric (MS) and tandem mass spectrometric (MS-MS) detection coupled by a thermospray (TSP) interface were performed. The results showed th at non-ionic surfactants and their metabolites (primary degradation pr oducts) besides linear alkyl benzene sulphonates (LABS) may dominate t he range of pollutants. LC-MS confirmed that retention time shifts may occur if waste water extracts are separated on analytical columns. Th is cannot be recognized by UV detection. The identification of a bioch emical degradation product of a non-ionic surfactant was carried out b y both FIA-MS-MS and LC-MS-MS. Quantification of this compound was per formed by standard addition analysis using FIA-MS or LC-MS in the sele cted-ion monitoring (SIM) mode. The time required for quantification i s 25-30 times higher using LC-MS instead of FIA-MS.