Development of a Stable Pulp and Paper Industry Wastewater Referece Material for Use in Compliance Monitoring QA/QC Programs, 1996 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Standard Reference Materials (SRM) are central to intralaboratory and interlaboratory quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) programs. Currently, there are no reference materials that accurately reflect pulp and paper industry matrices. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, to a significant extent, based QA/QC on reagent water as the standard matrix. This approach essentially denies the existence of matrix effects. The current emphasis on total quality management, quality assurance, and quality control prompted this assessment of a reference material that would mimic pulp and paper industry wastewater. This paper discusses initial investigations into the development of a pulp and paper mill reference material. This reference material can be reconstituted on demand and used in compliance monitoring QA/QC programs. A comparison of the reconstituted reference materials performance versus non-lyophilized samples was evaluated for chlorophenols, neutral semivolatiles, resin and fatty acids, and sterols. Data on the stability of a select group of chlorinated phenolics in the reference material are presented.