Towards the use of DGT technique in a regulatory context for monitoring metals in marine water bodies : Results of an International Intercomparison Exercise

In order to move forward in the acceptance of a novel contaminant monitoring technique for the status assessment of marine water bodies, sensu the Water Framework Directive (WFD), an Inter-Laboratories Comparison (ILC) exercise was organized by Ifremer in the framework of the MONITOOL project - New tools for monitoring the chemical status in transitional and coastal waters under the EU WFD. This ILC focused on the use of DGT technique for the measurement of WFD priority metals (Cd, Ni and Pb). The objectives of this ILC were to test the performance of laboratories when analysing DGTs and to identify the critical handling (resin gel retrieval and elution) and analytical steps when working with DGT samplers, to establish recommendations to prevent misleading results.