ASTM Int'l Develops Standard for Sampling, Preservation, Mitigating Interferences for Analysis of Cyanide - ASTM D 7365

December 5, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS

Cyanide is routinely analyzed in water samples to demonstrate regulatory compliance.

However, improper sample collection or pretreatment can result in "significant" positive or negative bias potentially resulting in unnecessary permit violations or undetected cyanide releases into the environment, according to ASTM International.

According to John Sebroski, senior associate scientist, Bayer MaterialScience LLC and chair of the ASTM D 7365 task group, the standard provides a single, authoritative source for solutions to cyanide sampling and analysis problems.

The task group, which consists of representatives of instrument vendors, industry and government, plans to reference the standard in all of the cyanide test methods under the jurisdiction of Committee D19 to supersede previous guidance in this area.

Prior to deciding to propose this method in a formal rulemaking for adoption into 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 136 - Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants, the Clean Water Act methods group at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to reference this standard on their methods web page as a source of information, said ASTM International.

Subcommittee D19.06 is under the jurisdiction of Committee D19 on Water.

Source: ASTM International.