Software combination provides powerful tools for comprehensive reporting and electronic data deliverables to meet US Environmental Protection Agency requirements
Thermo Electron now offers a fully integrated software package for US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reporting using ICP-MS.
Combining the power of Thermo's PlasmaLab software for the X series ICP-MS with the established Metals Analytical Review and Reporting System (Marrs) from EISC, a scientific software development company, Thermo says it can now offer the most comprehensive reporting and electronic data deliverables (EDDs) package for EPA methods.
The US EPA uses a prescriptive approach using published guide methods for many chemical analysis techniques.
The methods give detailed instructions on instrument specification and the quality control approach that should be used.
Environmental analysis for regulatory work using ICP-MS must be of a consistently high quality, and the laboratory undertaking the analysis must work from approved documented methods.
For ICP-MS, relevant EPA methods include 200.8 (Office of Water) 1991; 6020 (Office of Solid Waste) 1994; 6020A (Office of Solid Waste) 1998 and ILM05.3D (Superfund's Contract Laboratory Program) 2004.
Thermo's X series ICP-MS already offers complete compliance with the analytical part of the EPA methods using PlasmaLab's Experiment Templates and optional Thermo Electron productivity packs.
However, method approval also extends to the format of the reporting and the actual content of the reports and EDDs themselves.
These reports and EDDs can be very comprehensive and traditionally require a lot of manual data entry from the operator of the ICP-MS.
The implementation of Marrs with the X series ICP-MS makes full use of the PlasmaLab XML data reporting system to minimise the amount of data entry required by the user to complete the EPA forms and EDDs, says Thermo.
The Marrs/PlasmaLab XML combination maximises the performance report capability of PlasmaLab to fully comply with the EPA requirements for mass calibration and peak width validation.
It is also possible to use the extra features of Marrs to link data from the Lims with data from the X series into a single report.
