Comprehensive identification of emerging contaminants in drinking water from 12 countries combining supramolecular...

Technological and industrial development has led to the release of thousands of emerging contaminants (ECs) into the environment. Many of these compounds persist in the water cycle and reach drinking water supplies due to their inefficient removal during conventional treatment. Given the potential risks of chronic exposure, continuous monitoring is essential. However, conventional extraction and target analysis approaches are limited in scope and may overlook unregulated or unknown contaminants. This study presents a supramolecular solvent (SUPRAS)-based all-in-one extraction combined with LC-HRMS-based suspect screening analysis for the identification of ECs in tap water. The method was applied to 53 drinking water samples from 12 countries. In total, 33 ECs were tentatively identified with confidence levels 1-3, most of them reported here for the first time in drinking water, including personal care products, surfactants, industrial chemicals, stimulants, and plasticisers. The identified compounds spanned a wide polarity range (log P -1.3 to 16.2), demonstrating the versatility of the SUPRAS-based approach. A preliminary risk assessment was conducted, and it was found that human health risk estimates (HQ and HI) remained below the threshold of concern. These findings demonstrate the utility of SUPRAS-based extraction in broad-scope screening workflows, underscore the need to expand monitoring beyond traditionally targeted contaminants, and contribute to an initial evaluation of tap water as a potential source of human exposure to ECs.