IRMM provides certified reference materials for the implementation of EU environmental policies. By using the reference materials laboratories can demonstrate that their measurement results are traceable. This means that they are globally comparable, and the need to duplicate analyses already done by others is reduced.
Environmental samples represent a huge variety of different combinations of substances to be analysed and the matrices in which they are embedded. The IRMM reference materials development team works to close the gap between existing reference materials of adequate quality from all over the world and the needs of environmental control laboratories.
Water
The EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) sets out the objectives for remediating polluted waters and for quality standards for protecting water. Furthermore, a list of chemical substances of greatest concerns, the priority substances, for European coastal and surface waters has been established and is regularly updated. IRMM develops suitable reference materials for substances on the priority list in water and related matrices.
The IRMM catalogue contains already a number of fresh water, ground water and sea water reference materials certified for trace elements, nutrients and other parameters of interest. These can be used in water laboratories in their quality assurance programmes. The water based materials for the hydrosphere are complemented by sediments from lakes, rivers, estuarine and coastal zones as well as biota certified for total and extractable trace elements, organometallic species (tributyltin, dibutyltin, methylmercury), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls.
Soil and sewage sludge
Sustainable primary production depends to a large extent on the natural fertility of soil. It is a vital and largely non-renewable resource. Contamination, soil erosion, the overall decline in soil quality and the sealing of soil are major problems across the EU. Soil reference materials offered by IRMM relate to analytes such as total and extractable major and trace elements (Cd, Pb, Hg) as well as polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and -furanes in different types of soil, sewage sludge of domestic and industrial origin and sludge amended soil.
Air quality
The Air Quality Framework Directive and its daughter directive (2008/50/EC and 2004/107/EC) require the monitoring of a range of parameters. IRMM provides reference materials such as PAHs and selected heavy metals in a PM10-like dust, trace elements or dioxins in fly ash or platium group elements in road dust.
New materials
Besides the more traditional analytes with ecotoxicological relevance such as heavy metals and persistent organochlorine pollutants, the fate of e.g. endocrine disruptors, brominated flame retardants, chloroalkanes, drug residues in the environment is moving into the focus of legislation and the competent authorities in the Member States. IRMM is performing gap analyses regarding the availability of reference materials for priority pollutants. In dependence on the outcome it is extending its environmental reference material programme to cover those substances and supply the measurement community with high quality materials certified for the 'novel' or emerging pollutants.
Reference materials catalogue