Preparation and certification of a reference material on PCBs in pig fat and its application in quality control in monitoring laboratories during theBelgian "PCB-crisis"

In this article, the production and validation of a new certified reference material "PCBs in animal fat" for the control of the maximum level of 200 ng/g setup by the European Communities for veterinary products from Belgium is described. Three materials are established: a blank, one material with about 100 ng/g and one with about 200 ng/g (sum of seven PCBs). Data on the production and certification are given. Additionally, this material was us ed as an unknown test material in the quality assurance program of the Belg ium meat monitoring system (before the certification of the material). Whil e the certification was performed with an uncertainty of less than 10%, the round robin exhibited larger deviations. However, these deviations were le ss than 20% for most of the 30 participating laboratories. Only two had sig nificantly higher deviations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.