Interaction of 15 priority substances for water monitoring at ng L−1 levels with glass, aluminium and fluorinated polyethylene bottles for the containment of water reference materials

Accreditation and Quality Assurance, Jul 2015

Certified water reference materials are currently not available for most of the hydrophobic organic pollutants listed in the EU Water Framework Directive. To find the most suitable container type for subsequent reference material productions, feasibility studies for the preparation of waters with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and tributyltin (TBT) close to environmental quality standards in water have been performed. Due to the hydrophobic nature of these compounds and their tendency to adsorb onto container walls, an adequate selection of the most appropriate material for containment, storage and transport of water reference materials is crucial. Three different materials (aluminium, amber glass and fluorinated polyethylene, FPE) and three volumes (500/600 mL, 1000/1200 mL and 2000/3000 mL, depending on commercial availability) were tested at ng L−1 level of the target compounds. FPE shows by far the highest loss of analytes due to adsorption onto the container walls for all compounds studied. Aluminium and glass are equally suited for PAHs and PBDEs, but aluminium is unsuitable as container material for TBT due to acid cleaning requirements. The volume of the containers had no dramatic effect on the adsorption behaviour of target compounds for the different volumes tested.

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Interaction of 15 priority substances for water monitoring at ng L−1 levels with glass, aluminium and fluorinated polyethylene bottles for the containment of water reference materials

Interaction of 15 priority substances for water monitoring at ng L21 levels with glass, aluminium and fluorinated polyethylene bottles for the containment of water reference materials Saioa Elordui-Zapatarietxe 0 1 2 3 Ina Fettig 0 1 2 3 Janine Richter 0 1 2 3 Rosemarie Philipp 0 1 2 3 Fanny Gantois 0 1 2 3 Be´atrice Lale`re 0 1 2 3 Claudia Swart 0 1 2 3 Ha˚ kan Emteborg 0 1 2 3 0 Laboratoire National de Me ́trologie et d'Essais (LNE) , 5, Avenue Albert Bartholome ́, 75015 Paris , France 1 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) , Retieseweg 111, 2440 Geel , Belgium 2 & Ha ̊kan Emteborg 3 Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) , Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig , Germany Certified water reference materials are currently not available for most of the hydrophobic organic pollutants listed in the EU Water Framework Directive. To find the most suitable container type for subsequent reference material productions, feasibility studies for the preparation of waters with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and tributyltin (TBT) close to environmental quality standards in water have been performed. Due to the hydrophobic nature of these compounds and their tendency to adsorb onto container walls, an adequate selection of the most appropriate material for containment, storage and transport of water reference materials is crucial. Three different materials (aluminium, amber glass and fluorinated polyethylene, FPE) and three volumes (500/600 mL, 1000/1200 mL and 2000/3000 mL, depending on commercial availability) were tested at ng L-1 level of the target compounds. FPE shows by far the highest loss of analytes due to adsorption onto the container walls for all compounds studied. Aluminium and glass are equally suited for PAHs and PBDEs, but aluminium is unsuitable as container material for TBT due to acid cleaning requirements. The volume of the containers had no dramatic effect on the adsorption behaviour of target compounds for the different volumes tested. Water Framework Directive; Reference materials; Hydrophobic organic pollutants; Bottles; Adsorption; Glass; Aluminium; Fluorinated polyethylene - Bundesanstalt fu¨r Materialforschung und –pru¨fung (BAM), Richard-Willsta¨tter-Str. 11, 12489 Berlin, Germany The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/EC [1] establishes the legal framework for protection of water bodies in Europe. It aims to reach a good ecological and chemical status by the end of 2015 ensuring the protection of water needs for society and ecosystems. In order to assess the chemical status of the waters, the amending Directive 2013/39/EC on environmental quality standards (EQS) [2] lays down concentration limits for 45 priority substances that have to be regularly monitored by the EU Member States. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and tributyltin (TBT) are among the priority substances due to their toxicity and widespread environmental occurrence. To ensure the quality of the measurement data, Directive 2009/90/EC on technical specifications for chemical analysis and monitoring of water status [3] requests that laboratories should use (certified) reference materials, if available, to assess that the results are traceable, accurate, reliable and comparable. Unfortunately, such reference materials are not available for PAHs, PBDEs and TBT in natural waters [4]. A very demanding requirement of the WFD for analytical laboratories is the measurements of the whole, nonfiltered water [5]. Even though analytical methods for many of the priority pollutants exist, most of them are not validated for the presence of high amounts of suspended particulate matter (SPM) [6]. This can lead to an important underestimation of concentrations in the whole water because the analytes are tenaciously bound to the particles [7]. The need for matrix certified reference materials (CRMs) certified for hydrophobic organic pollutants in whole water has frequently been highlighted as a serious drawback to fulfil the stipulated monitoring needs since the lack of these hinders the validation of analytical methods and the comparability of results [8, 9]. There have already been several attempts to prepare different water materials for interlaboratory comparisons [9–12]. The most common approaches imply a ‘‘reconstitution step’’ in the laboratory prior to analysis, i.e. the addition of a solution or a solid containing the compounds of interest to a specified water volume [4, 9]. Ready-to-use matrix materials are closer to real samples but display homogeneity and stability problems compared to the reconstitution approaches. Such challenges have to be resolved in order to be able to produce water matrix CRMs for hydrophobic organic compounds in the future. The collaborative project ‘‘Traceable Measurements for Monitoring Critical Pollutants under the European Wate (...truncated)


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Saioa Elordui-Zapatarietxe, Ina Fettig, Janine Richter, Rosemarie Philipp, Fanny Gantois, Béatrice Lalère, Claudia Swart, Håkan Emteborg. Interaction of 15 priority substances for water monitoring at ng L−1 levels with glass, aluminium and fluorinated polyethylene bottles for the containment of water reference materials, Accreditation and Quality Assurance, 2015, pp. 447-455, Volume 20, Issue 6, DOI: 10.1007/s00769-015-1150-3