The proposed project aims at high quality research in Environmental Analysis, by filling a gap in the current perspective on the (bio)transformation products of emerging pollutants. Ultimately, a contribution to the current knowledge on the actual burden of micropollutants on the aquatic environment will be added and comprehensive conclusions will be reached for the possible measures to be taken for its future protection.

Moreover, the removal efficiency of widely used secondary and tertiary wastewater treatment processes, as well as the formation of TPs during treatment will be investigated for selected emerging pollutants, which is also a great challenge in the field of environmental science and technology. Therefore, the specific objectives of the proposed research are:

1. To develop wide-scope targeted screening liquid chromatographic – (high resolution) tandem mass spectrometric (LC-HR-MS/MS) methods for the detection and quantitation of known and tentative (predicted) major metabolites and transformation products of abundant emerging pollutants and to build a database with their occurrence data in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Athens.
2. To develop wide-scope non-targeted screening LC-HR-MS/MS methods for the detection and identification of currently unknown abundant emerging pollutants and their possible transformation products using metabolomics strategies with the ultimate aim to map the “fingerprint” of influents and effluents.
3. To investigate the formation of transformation products of representative major emerging pollutants, such as diuretics (furosemide, hydrochlorothiazide), antiepileptic drugs (lamotrigine, topiramate), opiates (tramadol), and artificial sweeteners (cyclamate), during lab-scale batch biological secondary and advanced tertiary wastewater treatment (ozonation) and to study the effect of major treatment parameters on their (bio)degradation.
4. To develop methods for the determination of new synthetic drugs of abuse and their transformation products in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Athens and back-calculate their consumption in the society.