I am currently working on my paper on hydrogeochemistry. I would like to ask for any reference material regarding the accepted charge balance error for groundwater chemistry (major ions). We conducted a groundwater study in 2019 and planning to publish a paper. However, I got confused about the Charge balance error. I have read that it should not be more than +-5%. These water samples were actually sent to the commercial laboratory available in our region. However, some of these data are more than 10% error. Out of 60 samples, 30 will be eliminated bcos of this. Can I consider samples with
In general, acceptable water analyses have CBE less than ±5%.
It is important to note that CBE is a relative error (rather than an absolute one). Due to the presence of the denominator in the CBE equation, low-concentrated waters are especially sensitive to the small deviations between total cations and anions.
References
- Regards
+_5% is the standard acceptable limit for CBE error. but you should consider the personal errors and the undetermined dissolved ions that could be contained in your samples as some contaminants which could enlarge the CBE prrcentage.
CBE is desirable between -5 to +5%. But in some cases it is considerable ulto 10%. You can follow Matthes (1982) or my article -Hydochemical characterization of fluoride in diverse aquifer (Hossain and Patra 2020)
A Survey of Charge-Balance Errors on Published Analyses of Potable Ground and Surface Waters.
Steven J. Fritz
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6584.1994.tb00888.x
Did you filter the samples before analysis?
Usually the limit is ±5%, however ±10% is also acceptable. Since in most cases, all the ions are not analyzed, you may have results outside of this range.
For more information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IuRYciaghc&t=183s