New Directive 2020/2184 on the quality of water intended for human consumption describes minimum hygiene requirements for some materials including the porcelain enamel which is used to coat the inner surface in contact with drinking water of domestic and industrial water supply systems.
The new European regulation has been recasted with restrictions of certain chemical elements and involving hot water test.
For this reason enamel manufacturers need to develop new frit compositions that contain only chemical substances compliant with the positive list and the final enamel must show releases even in hot water at 85 °C that fulfil the required limits.
For this purpose it is necessary to use suitable analytical methodologies, such as the use of X-ray fluorescence and ICP-OES for the analysis of the enamel composition and ICP-MS to detect the release of required chemical elements in the migration water.
In this presentation, we propose an overview of these analytical instruments, their uses and differences to understand how to improve the performance of the enamel surface in contact with drinking water so that it can comply with the new Directive.
Going into detail, the influence of the temperature of the water used to carry out the test on the migration of the various analytes already investigated in the current legislation, was investigated. A traditional electrostatic powder enamel for water heaters has been used as reference in comparison with a new formulation recently developed by Colorobbia which provides greater resistance to migrations at high temperatures.  Migration curves of the individual analytes were constructed as a function of the water temperature used for both enamels under investigation to evaluate differences in terms of performances and to better simulate the possible scenarios in the real conditions of use of the water heater tanks.