New certified reference materials for the quality control of groundwater monitoring

Routine monitoring of groundwater is currently performed by a number of lab oratories worldwide to control the level of contamination by major or trace elements. A proper evaluation of the contamination levels and compliance w ith regulations imply that analytical data should be accurate, which requir es the availability of representative certified reference materials (CRMs) as a fool for quality control. This article describes the preparation and c ertification of a series of six groundwater reference materials which were certified for the major and trace element contents, within the framework of two separate EC-funded projects (SMT programme). Besides information on th e production of the CRMs, a description of the analytical techniques used b y the certifying laboratories is given. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.