Capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography for determining steroids in concentrates of purified water from Päijänne Lake.

The research was done with partial filling micellar electrokinetic chromatography, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography, and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography. The study focuses on determination of male and female steroids from cold and hot tap water of households in Helsinki City. The district´s raw water is made run from Päijänne Lake through a water tunnel to the purification plants in Helsinki area. The effluents delivered from the plants to households as tap water were sampled and used for the study. They were concentrated with solid phase extraction to exceed the detection limits of the three methods. With partial filling method the limits were 0.50, 0.48, 0.33, and 0.50 mg/L for androsterone, testosterone, progesterone, and testosterone-glucuronide, respectively. In microemulsion method the limit values were 1.33, 1.11, and 0.40 mg/L for androsterone, testosterone, and progesterone, respectively, and 0.83, 0.45, and 0.50 mg/L for hydrocortisone, 17-α-hydroxyprogesterone, and 17-α-methyltestosterone, respectively. In the tap water samples, progesterone concentrations represented the highest values being 0.22 and 1.18 ng/L in cold and hot water, respectively. They also contained testosterone (in all samples), its glucuronide metabolite (in 25% of the samples), and androstenedione (in 75% of the samples). The ultra-high liquid chromatographic method with mass spectrometric detection was used for identification of the steroids at µg/L level.