This paper aims at presenting the possibilities of applying gas chromatography for the determination of pharmaceutical residues in different matrices. Section one of the study underscores the environmental advantages of employing GC for such analyses. Section two presents the innovative methods for determining pharmaceuticals in the environment. The last section discusses the results of the analysis of the GC and GC-MS market in Poland.

According to the literature data, the described methods were applied for the analysis of real samples: wastewaters, surface waters, soil samples. The samples were collected from the Pomerania region and the Gulf of Gdańsk. The pharmaceuticals were determined in various environmental samples. The highest concentrations were found in raw wastewater, medium – in a treated wastewater, and the lowest – in surface water. The most frequently detected pharmaceuticals were: ibuprofen, paracetamol, diclofenac and naproxen, all belonging to NSAIDs.

Furthermore, the results of the study of the Polish GC market indicate that a very limited number of entities are currently using chromatographic techniques, and pharmaceutical residues tests are exceptions, mainly due to the lack of the legal requirements in this field and the lack of own laboratories.

The sustainable development of human activities is directly related to the protection of the environment by lowering the anthropogenic stress. Pharmaceuticals – due to their growing consumption (use in medicine, veterinary, animal production, cosmetics) and their incomplete removal in wastewater treatment plants – are classified as a group of new and rapidly emerging pollutants which have been proven to have a negative impact onto water organisms. In order to ensure the proper protection of human health and the environment there is an urgent necessity of determining pharmaceuticals in clinical, cosmetic, food and environmental samples. Gas (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) are valuable techniques for such determination, especially when they are coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS; LC-MS) or tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS; LC-MS/MS). The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of sustainability features of analytical techniques in the light of necessity to determine trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the aforementioned different matrices. Using the Delphi method we performed an analysis of the key sources of the competitive advantages of the application of GC and GC-MS techniques for determining the pharmaceutical residue in clinical, cosmetic, food and environmental samples – compared to techniques based on HPLC or LC-MS. The analysis covered the following areas: (i) the features of the technique, (ii) the price, and (iii) the applicability in various sectors of economy.