Certification of total mercury and methyl-mercury in an estuarine sediment, CRM 580

✍ Scribed by P. Quevauviller; G. U. Fortunati; M. Filippelli; A. Bortoli; H. Muntau

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 128 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2605
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0739(199808/09)12:8/9<531::aid-aoc758>3.0.co;2-i

✦ Synopsis

Legislation on methylmercury within the European Union (EU), e.g. in food (national regulations) or water (EC Directives), requires that the determinations are of proven quality; thus implies that they should be carried out under strict quality control (QC). One method of achieving good quality control in chemical analysis is to verify the analytical performance of methods by analysing Certified Reference Materials (CRMs). While CRMs of biological matrices (e.g. fish, mussels) are already available, there was a lack of materials for the QC of sediment analysis. This paper describes the preparation of an estuarine sediment reference material, the homogeneity and stability studies and the analytical work performed for the certification of the contents of total mercury and methylmercury. The results of a group of expert laboratories are discussed and the methods used to certify the mass fractions of total mercury (132 AE 3 mg kg À1 on a dry mass basis) and methylmercury (75.5 AE 3.7 mg kg À1 as CH 3 Hg on a dry mass basis) are described.