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USEPA METHOD STUDY 37 - SW-846 METHOD 3050, ACID DIGESTION OF SEDIMENTS, SLUDGES AND SOILS BY AA-DIRECT ASPIRATION
Citation:
Edgell, K. USEPA METHOD STUDY 37 - SW-846 METHOD 3050, ACID DIGESTION OF SEDIMENTS, SLUDGES AND SOILS BY AA-DIRECT ASPIRATION. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/4-89/012.
Description:
An interlaboratory collaborative study was conducted to determine the precision and accuracy of Method 3050 for the analysis of 23 elements in sediments, sludqes and soils. Method 3050 is entitled, "Acid Digestion of Sediments, Sludges and Soils." It includes instructions for quality control, sample preparation and analysis of samples by AA direct aspiration. The study desiqn was based upon Youden's non-replicate plan for collaborative tests of analytical methods. Initially, 14 solid wastes were collected, direid, homogenized and analyzed for the 23 elements of interest by Inductively-Coupled Plasma. Based upon this data, seven solid wastes were selected that contained the most naturally-occurring elements over a relatively wide concentration range. Elements not occurring naturally were spiked into each solid waste, and subsequently digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide, refluxed with nitric or hydrochloric acid, and analyzed by atomic absorption - direct aspiration. The resulting data were analyzed using USEPA computer program routine entitled, "Interlaboratory Method Validation Study." The data analysis produced measures of precision and mean recovery for the mean recovery for the acid digestion/AA direct aspiration for each element. The study was conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Quality Assurance Research Division, Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory, Cincinnati, Ohio.