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TDS - importance of crucible material?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 1:36 pm
by markf
Hey guys,

We're doing water and wastewater TDS analysis, and traditionally the analysis was done using porcelain drying plates.
But their tendency to absorb moisture is very annoying, to say the least.

The SM method specifies using glass, porcelain or platinum crucibles.
Is there any flexibility to the crucible choice?
May I use, assuming my matrices are non aggressive and a validation will be made, aluminium drying plates?
Can anything else be used? What is your experience with those methods?
By the way, I've searched for the equivalent EPA method but didn't find it, could someone link to it please?

Thanks in advance.

Re: TDS - importance of crucible material?

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 4:43 am
by Labshak
We always used the porcelain and didn’t have any real issue other then how tedious it is to make sure it’s bone dry. As far as I know most people use SM or reference it. We recently, in the last couple years started using pre weighed plastic bags by environmental express. They cost a bit and the static sucks but the time savings is huge.