Success Stories
LHQA in Water Quality Laboratory: Helping Americans Sip Safely
Laboratory Challenge
For the privilege of safe sipping in the United States, thanks are owed to water quality laboratories, tasked with analyzing water samples for a variety of harmful substances. Any errors in testing can result in the release of contaminated water to the public. Therefore, water quality laboratories are tightly regulated by federal and state authorities.
Quality control is mandated for critical laboratory processes, and this includes pipette calibration. Performing a large number of volume-dependent contaminant identification tests, water quality laboratories must implement measures to verify the accuracy and precision of its liquid delivery instruments.
One state water quality laboratory was using gravimetry to calibrate its liquid handling devices. However, gravimetric calibration is time consuming and easily affected by environmental conditions such as humidity, air flow, and temperature. Challenged by the need to perform real-time water quality monitoring and the rapid pace of sample testing, with up to 475,000 analyses of 40,000 samples conducted each year, the laboratory realized that gravimetric calibration was impeding laboratory efficiency.
Solution
This water quality laboratory switched to the ARTEL PCS for quicker and more accurate assurance of pipette performance. The PCS can verify minute volumes with a high degree of accuracy, while providing automated verification and documentation of calibration results to meet federal and state standards.
The PCS performs a 10-point calibration of low volume pipettes in less than four minutes, as compared to gravimetric methods requiring 15 to 60 minutes. This time-savings encourages more frequent pipette calibration, which helps the laboratory ensure more consistent and reliable pipetting.
And this helps the laboratory meet Drinking Water Laboratory Certification requirements, required by the EPA for all facilities analyzing public water supplies.
Results
The PCS has enhanced the water quality laboratory’s ability to confirm the purity of the public’s drinking water. The reduction in required calibration time has resulted in better use of the laboratory’s overhead and personnel, which can be reallocated to important testing processes. In addition, the added convenience makes more frequent calibration, and thereby more reliable test outcomes, a viable option.
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