CB2.3 - Macro and trace elements in animal feedingstuffs and feed materials
Purpose
- To prevent disputes being referred to the GC, through the official adoption of a method for determining macro and trace elements at the levels required by legislation
- To develop a high-performance analytical strategy that could help determine levels of macro and trace elements with the confidence levels required of the GC as referee.
Background
Schedule 6 of the ‘Feedingstuffs Regulations 2000’ prescribes limits of variation for certain analytical constituents, including macro and trace elements, of animal feedingstuffs and feed materials. These limits protect human health via the food chain.
Compliance with the regulations is determined by public analysts and the Government Chemist, when called to act as referee, using statutory methods of analysis. However, of those statutory methods that are available for macro and trace elements, many are based on classical methods; which are inherently time-consuming and labour-intensive. Some methods involve techniques that have been superseded by more modern methods or are largely obsolete.
Outputs
It is important statutory methods keep pace with technology and what is used in industry and the wider analytical community. With this in mind, this project aims to validate a high-performance multi-element method (preferably ICP-OES), which will provide an alternative to flame atomic absorption or emission spectrometry, as a replacement for statutory methods based on outdated techniques. Such a technique will allow the simultaneous determination of all macro and trace elements by a single analytical method.