Introduction
Reference materials are the measurement tools used by laboratories to assure the quality of their measurement results and to establish metrological traceability to the international system of units (SI).
There are a variety of reference materials available for different functions in the testing laboratory.
Certified Reference Materials for instrument calibration (establishing metrological traceability)
These are high purity compounds, solutions or gas mixtures that are used to calibrate the instruments response relative to the content of the analyte of interest usually represented as a mass fraction concentration, e.g. mg/kg.
NMISA is an ISO 17034: 2016 accredited reference material producer (CRM001 and CRM002). We currently offer CRMs for instrument calibration in the area of forensic blood alcohol analysis, blood preservation, breathalyser calibration, mycotoxin analysis and primary reference gas mixtures for environmental pollution monitoring.
Please visit our on-line store for our full
catalogue or e-mail us at
referencematerials@nmisa.org.
Matrix Certified Reference Materials for assessing bias/ method recovery (maintaining the metrological traceability chain)
Matrix CRMs are materials that have naturally incurred analytes or minor components in them. These materials typically reflect real-life samples routinely analysed in the laboratory. The exact quantities of these minor components are certified metrologically traceable to the SI units, through NMISA's high accuracy reference measurements. Laboratories use these materials to evaluate how effectively they have extracted the minor components of interest from the matrix. Correcting for this bias allows the traceability chain to be re-established and linked back to the instrument calibration.
Food safety matrix certified reference materials are available for:
- aflatoxins in peanut slurry,
- mycotoxins in maize,
- toxic and nutritional elements in wheat flour.
Please visit our on-line store for our full catalogue
catalogue or email us at
referencematerials@nmisa.org
Matrix Reference Materials for quality control
These are matrix reference materials that have been produced for use in proficiency testing (PT) schemes and are usually value assigned by PT participant consensus. The materials have been assessed for stability and homogeneity.
NMISA QC reference materials are available after the PT scheme rounds are completed and are often used by laboratories wanting to re-evaluate their methods, training of analysts or for in-house quality control during routine testing.
Please visit our on-line store for our full
catalogue or e-mail us at
referencematerials@nmisa.org
