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- 2011 (2)
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- Englisch (2)
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- Electrotechnical products (1)
- Elemental composition (1)
- Printed circuit boards (1)
- RoHS (1)
The EU RoHS Directive (2002/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council) bans the placing of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants on the EU market. It necessitates methods for the evaluation of RoHS compliance of assembled electronic equipment. In this study mounted printed circuit boards from personal computers were analyzed on their content of the three elements Cd, Pb and Hg which were limited by the EU RoHS directive. Main focus of the investigations was the influence of sample pre-treatment on the precision and reproducibility of the results. The sample preparation steps used were based on the guidelines given in EN 62321. Five different types of dissolution procedures were tested on different subsequent steps of sample treatment like cutting and milling. Elemental analysis was carried out using ICP–OES, XRF and CV–AFS (Hg). The results obtained showed that for decision-making with respect to RoHS compliance a size reduction of the material to be analyzed to particles ≤1.5 mm can already be sufficient. However, to ensure analytical results with relative standard deviations of less than 20%, as recommended by the EN 62321, a much larger effort for sample processing towards smaller particle sizes might be required which strongly depends on the mass fraction of the element under investigation.
The traceabiiity requirements for certification analyses of reference materials are much more stringent than for routine analysis, where certified matrix reference materials (CRM) can be used for calibration and to establish traceabiiity. Although the ISO-Guides related to CRM production and certification are not fully clear concerning calibration, many established CRM-producers do not accept matrix-CRMs for calibration in case of certification analyses, e.g. to avoid circular reasoning. These requirements limit the methods used for certification to those that can be calibrated using Standards of known high purity and stoichiometry or mixtures of such Standards. Powerful solid sampling techniques such as glow discharge mass spectrometry (GD-MS) or spark-optical emission spectrometry (SOES), where usually compact CRMs are used for calibration, seem not be applicable for certification analyses. Especially GD-MS is a powerful tool for trace element determination of solid samples. Beside metallic impurities the use of specific gas mixtures enables also the determination of interesting nonmetallic impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus. Within BAM a calibration approach, was developed which enables to use mixtures of Standards of known high purity and stoichiometry also for GD-MS. Analogue to matrix adaption in solution based techniques, the calibration approach is based on doped pressed powder pellets.
Approach and application on the certification analyses of copper and Steel CRMs are presented.