The role of the European commission in the maintenance of air quality standards

We describe intercomparison results obtained in the framework of the EC Directive 799/80 CEE on SO₂, Black Smoke (BS) and Total Suspended Particulates (TSP) using standard reference materials. Calibrations and measuring methods used in national laboratories were compared to the reference methods laid down in the Directive. For SO₂, the deviations were caused by inappropriate handling of the calibration rather than by possible shortcomings of the different methods themselves. In contrast, for BS, largest deviations were caused by differences in configurations of filter/reflectometer and of the conversion curves; for TSP by varying the type of filters and conditioning procedures before weighing.