Validation of a horizontal method for trace elements in soil, sludge and biowaste

To implement a validated method for the analysis of 22000 soil samples stemming from 2009 LUCAS Soil Survey as well as from sewage sludge and treated biowaste samples from to FATE- Programme, a validation study was conducted with the following objectives: (i) to validate these methods for the determination of heavy metals by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission! Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and Could Vapour-Atomic Adsorption Spectrometry (CV-AAS) techniques, respectively, according to the ISO 17025 requirement and (ii) to implement these methods for the determination of heavy metals in soil, sludge and compost samples on a routine basis. The calibration curves, detection and quantification limits, trueness as well as repeatability were determined. The budget uncertainty was also estimated (including a full uncertainty budget and Ishikawa-diagram).