Determination of metals in selected elements of the environment in the context of applicable legal regulations

Abstract

The number of substances that pose a potential risk to the environment is still growing, and their permissible concentrations vary in different countries. When conducting an environmental assessment, it is necessary to use selective and sensitive analytical methods to determine the content of contaminants at appropriate concentration levels. Obtaining reliable analytical results is possible using specific procedures (accreditation of the research laboratory) and using appropriate methodologies. If the methodologies are, for instance, repeatable, accurate and sensitive, and tested by many years of use, they can become reference methodologies, which proves that they are carefully examined and guarantee good results. One of the groups of substances for which the content in environmental elements (in water, wastewater, soils) must be monitored are metals and metalloids. The necessity to determine the content of this type of analytes in environmental samples is required by law, and the permissible concentrations in the environmental elements are decreasing. The article presents an overview of the most important Polish legal acts related to the content of metals and metalloids in various elements of the environment and provides the reference methodologies that should be used to determine this content. The review of the permissible limit values of metals and metalloids in water, sewage and soil showed that the values of acceptable metal and metalloid concentrations vary within a wide range depending on the type of analytes being measured and it is necessary to determine this type of contaminants at very low concentration levels. The conducted overview of regulations showed that it is necessary to determine metals in environmental samples at very low concentration levels. Reference methods recommended by the law for determining most metals in environmental samples are: Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS or ASA). Those are instrumental methods, each of them has both advantages and disadvantages. The choice of the appropriate method should depend on the determined concentration ranges, analytes determined, but also the costs of purchasing and using the apparatus.