Detection of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in water using spectrophotometry and fluorimetry

Abstract

Fluoroquinolones are broad-spectrum antibiotics that treat serious bacterial infections in veterinary and medical applications. If they are constantly present in water bodies in small doses, entering via wastewater from hospitals and pharmaceutical plants, or from fields treated with manure from animals that received such drugs, this creates ecological risks. Even low concentrations of fluoroquinolones disrupt the balance in aquatic environments. Ultimately, this leads to a loss of biodiversity and the degradation of natural communities. The development of methods for the quantitative determination of antibiotics in natural water is a pressing task. In this study, we investigated the absorption and fluorescence spectra of two antibiotics, ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin in water, and proposed spectroscopic approaches for their measurement. First, antibiotic concentrations were determined based on either the absorption band area or the absorbance value at a fixed wavelength. For detecting concentrations of trace amounts of antibiotics fluorescence spectroscopy was employed. However, due to the partial overlap between the fluoroquinolones emission band and the fluorescence signal of natural organic matter in water and soil, this approach proved insufficiently selective. To isolate the contribution of fluoroquinolones, synchronous fluorescence spectra were measured at a constant wavelength difference (Δλ). The antibiotics concentration was determined based on the peak area in the UV part of the synchronous fluorescence spectrum. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach in determining antibiotics concentration, highlighting its potential for environmental monitoring.

Speaker

Yulia Sokolovskaya
M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russia

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