New sediment reference material for the quality control of butyltin and phenyltin analysis

Since 1988 the European Commission (through the BCR activity) has been acti ve in the area of speciation analysis through the organisation of interlabo ratory studies and the production of reference materials. The efforts enabl ed us to evaluate the international state of the art for the determination of various organometal species. One of the programmes concerned the quality control of organotin analyses in environmental matrices. This paper gives an outline of this programme and describes the latest material produced, a freshwater sediment (BCR 646) certified for tributyltin, dibutyltin, monobu tyltin, triphenyltin, diphenyltin and monophenyltin. Details of the product ion, homogeneity and stability of the reference material are given. The res ults of the certification are evaluated from a technical and a statistical point of view. (C)2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.