| Popis: |
Cyanobacteria, an algae bloom that is responsible for the creation of deadly toxins. These toxins have the potential to adversely impact human and animal health. Microcystins (MC’s), are harmful toxins that are produced by cyanobacteria species. These deadly toxins are the most investigated toxins worldwide. However, in South Africa their occurrence statistics are deficient due to inaccessibility of reliable, sensitive, and precise analytical methods to investigate them in water surfaces. Thus, a development of analytical methods for the detection and accurate quantification of algal toxins is crucial to consider the health risk of exposure to toxins in wastewater and surface waters. This study recommends an analytical method for the detection and quantification of algal toxins using solid phase extraction (SPE) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with photodiode detector (PDA). The developed method was validated based on linearity which ranged from 3–2500 µg L− 1, recoveries at 99.6–113.9%, the limit of detection (LOD) ranging from 0.2–480 µg L− 1, and limit of quantification (LOQ) at 0.7–160 µg L− 1 and the regression coefficients obtained were above 0.9880 in all analytes. The developed method was applied to Darvill Wastewater Treatment Plant, Umgeni water, Durban surface waters, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) sport centre tap water and UKZN Westville two ponds), South Africa. MC-RR was the most detected analyte at concentration ranging from 0.069–30.521 ng L− 1 compared to other targeted MCs. The developed method is simple and cheap, which can consent developing countries to monitor these deadly MC toxins in water surfaces. |
