CEM - Abstract

Abstract Information :

To underpin global efforts to control and reduce the mercury concentrations in the environment robust, defensible and SI traceable measurement results of mercury concentrations are essential. Therefore, primary mercury gas standards and SI-traceable calibration methods for mercury concentrations in air have been developed in the past decade. Notwithstanding these efforts there are no standardized procedures that ensure the dissemination of the metrological traceability from primary to working standards among calibration and testing laboratories and in emission sources. Scientifically sound calibration protocols, to assess the performance of elemental and oxidised mercury gas generators in the form of formally accepted documentary standards, are of fundamental importance to guarantee the accuracy and comparability of the mercury measurement results in gas emission sources in Europe and globally. Within the EMPIR (European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research) SI-Hg project (Metrology for traceable protocols for elemental and oxidised mercury concentrations - 19NRM03) such metrological calibration protocols are developed and validated. The calibration protocols contribute to establishing a traceability chain from a primary mercury gas standards to measurement data obtained in gas emission sources. The protocol replaces thereby other references currently used in mercury concentration measurements. The validation data contributes to the incorporation of the calibration protocol into new and existing documentary standards. An overview of the project results will be presented.