Development of reference and test materials for organic contaminants in water

The unavailability of certified reference materials for trace organic contaminants in different types of water has placed a serious restriction on the ability to validate analytical methodology and provide the necessary quality assessment of environmental data generated from aqueous samples. Lyophilised waters, concentrates and in situ spiking are proposed as methods for the preparation of aqueous reference materials to overcome the problems associated with the instability of the determinands in water, the bulk of the samples and the inherent heterogeneity of multi-phased samples with suspended solids, colloids and dissolved material.