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How do you ensure the lowest detection limits for your analyses? Reporting limits for ethene are critical to identifying and demonstrating complete natural biodegradation of chlorinated ethenes. In fact, reporting limits for ethene that are 200 times lower can be crucial. Many professionals ask what laboratory method should be used to achieve these detection limits? The truth is, there is no specific method that will achieve these detection limits.
Many “Sampling and Analysis Plans” stipulate the use of RSK175 for the analysis of dissolved ethene. However, RSK175 is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), not a method. To truly follow the SOP, you need to be in the Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center in Ada, OK and you need to be using the instrumentation for which the RSK175 SOP was written. Some laboratories use the procedure and quality control criteria stipulated in RSK175. That is important, because the quality control criteria of that procedure is extremely valid. However, use of that procedure at places other than RSK doesn’t automatically produce a particular detection level. Laboratories only get detection levels as good as the procedure combined with the instrument they use. Microseeps follows the quality control criteria set forth in RSK175, but achieves much lower detection limits, in our version of RSK175 called AM20Gax. As a NELAP certified laboratory Microseeps, employs high quality standards throughout its laboratory. All samples are subject to the same stringent handling criteria be they samples for methane, ethane and ethene analysis or samples for SW846-8260 analysis. All analyses are subject to the same quality control procedures recommended by SW846, be they according to an internal SOP for ethene or according to the SW846 procedure for vinyl chloride. All data is subject to the same review procedure, be it dissolved gas data or TAL metals data. Certifications are very rarely required for dissolved gas analyses, so obtaining such certification is difficult. However, Microseeps’ AM20GAx procedure is certified in Louisiana. Microseeps’ procedure has been reviewed and the laboratory has successfully been audited for AM20GAX for the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (NELAP) through Pennsylvania. Microseeps anticipates being able to announce that certification by the end of 2005.
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