Detection of polyvinylpyrrolidone in Daphnia magna: Development of a refractive index quantification method for water-soluble polymers in aquatic organisms

The water-soluble polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is an established ingredient in pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) formulations. Due to its high usage and lack of biodegradability, it has been detected up to 7.0 mg L−1 in wastewater and 0.1 mg L−1 in the receiving freshwaters, with several studies showing detrimental sublethal effects in a range of aquatic species. A lack of simple analytical methods to detect and quantify PVP currently impacts further investigation into the cause of these sublethal effects. In this paper we propose a refractive index gel-permeation chromatography (GPC) method to quantify PVP, which includes the processing of raw chromatograms using line deconvolution to calculate peak area. The method was then applied to Daphnia magna exposed to PVP for 48 h. A limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of 0.05 and 0.2 mg mL−1 respectively was determined, with a recovery of 78 % from spiked Daphnia magna. PVP was detected in the samples above the LOD but below the LOQ. This suggests PVP is ingested by Daphnia magna, which warrants further investigation into whether bioaccumulation of PVP could be causing the sublethal effects seen in other studies. [Display omitted] •Novel method developed to detect and quantify PVP using Daphnia magna.•Refractive index GPC coupled with Fityk 1.3.1 enabled deconvolution of PVP peak.•Method had LOD and LOQ of 0.05 and 0.2 mg mL−1, respectively.•Recovery of 78 % of PVP from spiked Daphnia magna.•PVP detected in Daphnia magna for the first time.