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Dioxins and Furans in the SETOC programme
The routine laboratory performance studies provide the basis of external quality assurance for institutes that make regular chemical measurements in the terrestrial, aquatic and marine environment. The sample types/matrices are chosen to represent the materials which laboratories normally analyse and have a natural resource e.g. from river beds, lake bottoms and harbours. There is no spiking or use of artificial samples.
In the WEPAL programmes (IPE, ISE, SETOC and MARSEP) participants can analyse all the determinants they are interested in. This means that samples need to be collected containing all determinands of which our participants are interested in and only when sufficient laboratories analyse a specific determinand the performance is calculated. However, it is difficult to collect samples contaminated with all determinands of interest and not always performances can be calculated due to lack of data.
For dioxins and furans, it is difficult to collect sufficient samples with detectable amounts. To overcome this issue, once a year WEPAL specifically selects a number of samples with detectable amounts of dioxins and furans in the SETOC programme (Sediment Exchange for Tests on Organic Contaminants).
In the period January-March 2022 you are cordially invited to send in results of dioxins and furans in addition to your normal selection of determinands during this period. We are looking forward to the results of this first round of 2022.