What is BS EN 16190 about?
BS EN 16190 is an international standard that discusses soil, treated biowaste, sludge, and waste.
BS EN 16190 specifies a method for the quantitative determination of 17 2,3,7,8-chlorine substituted dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in sludge, treated biowaste and soil using gas chromatographic clean-up methods and GC/HRMS.
BS EN 16190 provides a method that is “performance-based”. It is allowed to modify the method if all performance criteria given in this method are met. The limit of detection depends on the kind of sample, the congener, the equipment used, and the quality of chemicals used for extraction and clean-up.
Under the conditions specified in BS EN 16190, limits of detection better than 1 ng/kg (expressed as dry matter) are achieved.
Who is BS EN 16190 for?
BS EN 16190 on soil, treated biowaste, sludge, and waste is useful for:
- Researchers involved in soil sciences
- Analytical laboratories involved in soil sciences
- Ecologists and conservationists
- Geologists
- Environmentalists
Why should you use BS EN 16190?
Two groups of related chlorinated aromatic ethers are known as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs); they consist of a total of 210 individual substances (congeners): 75 PCDD and 135 PCDF. They occur as undesirable byproducts in the manufacture or further processing of chlorinated organic chemicals. PCDD/PCDF enter the environment via these emission paths and through the use of contaminated materials. In fact, they are universally present at very small concentrations.
BS EN 16190 is based on the use of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry combined with the isotope dilution technique to help you enable the separation, detection, and quantification of PCDD/PCDF and dioxin-like PCB in sludge, biowaste, and soil. It is applicable for several types of matrices and validated for municipal sludge.
BS EN 16190 serves the main purpose of the clean-up procedure of the raw sample extract, for the removal of sample matrix components, which may overload the separation method, and disturb the quantification. These components otherwise might also severely impact the performance of the identification and quantification method as well as the separation of PCDD/PCDF from dioxin-like PCB.
Furthermore, BS EN 16190 helps to achieve the enrichment of the analytes in the final sample extract.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS EN 16190:2018 supersedes CEN/TS 16190:2012, which is withdrawn.