PD CEN/TS 16800:2020

What is PD CEN/TS 16800 about?  

PD CEN/TS 16800 discusses guidelines for the validation of physicochemical analytical methods. PD CEN/TS 16800 describes an approach for the validation of physico-chemical analytical methods for environmental solid matrices and water. 

PD CEN/TS 16800 applies to the validation of a broad range of quantitative physico-chemical test methods for the analysis of water (including drinking water, surface water, groundwater, wastewater, marine water), and of solid environmental matrices, such as soil, sludge, liquid and solid waste, sediment, and biota. PD CEN/TS 16800 is intended for standardized protocols adopted by a laboratory, and either for test methods aiming at substances that have recently become of interest or for test methods applying recently developed technologies. 

Who is PD CEN/TS 16800 for? 

PD CEN/TS 16800 on guidelines for the validation of physicochemical analytical methods is useful for: 

• Testing laboratories 
• Marine biologists 
• Water and wastewater treatment plants  
• Researchers involved in soil sciences 
• Analytical laboratories involved in soil sciences  
• Ecologists and conservationists 
• Builders and developers who need to conduct physicochemical tests 
• Organizations that need to conduct physicochemical tests 

Why should you use PD CEN/TS 16800? 

Environmental monitoring of chemical substances is increasingly carried out within a European framework, and there is concern about the comparability of data at the European level. Methods used for the monitoring of substances with recent interest have often not been properly validated either in-house (that is within a single laboratory) or at the international level. 

PD CEN/TS 16800 provides a common European approach to the validation of chemical methods for the respective monitoring of chemical substances in a broad range of matrices. Although the development of this approach was triggered by the needs for monitoring of emerging pollutants, it is of general nature and can be applied to the measurement of the concentration of a wide range of substances in a variety of matrices. 

The guidance in this document addresses the initial description of the method and two different validation approaches, in increasing order of complexity. These are: 

• Method development if the method is developed by the laboratory, or conditions of adoption, if the method is a standardized protocol adopted by the laboratory 
• Validation at the level of single laboratories (within-laboratory validation) 
• Method validation at the level of several laboratories (between-laboratory or inter-laboratory validation), with a focus on methods that are sufficiently mature and robust to be applied not only by a few expert laboratories but by laboratories operating at the routine level. 

What’s changed since the last update?  

PD CEN/TS 16800:2020 supersedes CEN/TS 16800:2015. The main changes compared to the previous version are as follows: 

• The scope has been extended from water only to water and environmental solid matrices, thus the document has been modified accordingly 
• Protocol for spiking of solid matrices has been added in an informative annex