Interestingly, they did admit procedural errors in their result validation practices. Not instrument failures.
Apparently, one of the tubes I submitted had 37.9 PSU salinity, the others 35.8 PSU. Evaporation would be a reasonable explanation, but how could this have happened?
They use an algorithm to do plausibility checks of all results before they release them, not only salinity, and this was not properly called out.
To my surprise, they sent me now a revised ICP result, which looks better, but raises other questions as to why specifically dynamic and other elements (non salinity related) changed quite drastically from the previous test.
Also, the RODI analysis is crazy - but there is an explanation to this: I could have used the wastewater to fill the vial, not the filtered water. Never happened, but I was a bit stressed when I took that sample and it is not impossible I made that mistake. But a coincidence that I made a mistake and they did both at the same time?
Overall, I suggested to ignore this test now and I will just send out another one.
ICP is about trust.
I did trust them - I was in their lab, touched their machines (bias), there are a number of German speaking videos where they explain their process, and I know other folks who are not from their company who have insight into the quality of their lab work, which appears solid.
But everyone makes mistakes. Still, I might more lean into getting a second opinion more frequently going forward - still waiting for the OCEAMO results.
