THE 1993 QUASIMEME LABORATORY-PERFORMANCE STUDY - CHLOROBIPHENYLS IN FISH-OIL AND STANDARD SOLUTIONS

A laboratory-performance study has been undertaken to improve the meas urement of chlorobiphenyls in marine biota as part of the QUASIMEME (E U-Measurement and Testing) project. Fifty-two laboratories were invite d to participate, of which 47 returned data on nine congeners in iso-o ctane solution and in cod liver oil. The concentration of CBs ranged b etween 7 and 124 mug kg-1 in the oil. The robust statistical analysis gave a within-laboratory relative standard deviation from 5.7 to 14.4% and between-laboratory relative standard deviation from 17.6 to 37%. Over 60% of all errors were due to inaccurate calibration, poor GC sep aration and non-analytical mistakes by 13 of the laboratories.