Abstract
Over the years, the nature of CRMs has changed considerably. Recently, more and more CRMs have been certified in their "natural" form, that is processed as little as possible, with analytes at their natural concentration level. This and the trend towards certified properties other than the concentrations of clearly defined molecules/elements have made guaranteeing stability of CRMs and estimating a shelf life an even more important issue for reference material producers than it has been before. One way to meet this challenge is to take more care in processing, storage and dispatch of CRMs. At IRMM, approximately 20 % of the RMs are stored at −20 °C or below and about 10% require cooled transportation. In addition, increased efforts for assessing stability are needed. Shelf lives are estimated using addition of an uncertainty component based on real-temperature stability studies rather than by accelerated stability studies. These pre-certification efforts are complemented by a stability-monitoring program, which at IRMM includes 80 % of the non-nuclear and non-isotopic materials. Although the costs for these efforts are high in absolute terms, they are only a minor and indispensable contribution to the total costs of CRM production.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
European Commission (1998) Setting the standard: 25 years of quality measurements. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, ISBN 92-828-0831-9, p 28
ISO (2000) ISO-guide 34—general requirements for the competence of reference material producers. Geneva, Switzerland
ISO-IEC-BIPM-IFCC-IUPAC-IUPAP-OIML (1995) Guide to the expression of uncertainties in measurement (GUM). Geneva, Switzerland (ISBN 92-67-10188-9), p 101
van der Veen AMH, Pauwels J (2000) Accred Qual Assur 5:464–469
van der Veen AMH, Linsinger TPJ, Pauwels J (2001) Accred Qual Assur 6:26–30
van der Veen AMH, Linsinger TPJ, Lamberty A, Pauwels J (2001) Accred Qual Assur 6:257–263
van der Veen AMH, Linsinger TPJ, Schimmel H, Lamberty A, Pauwels J (2001) Accred Qual Assur 6:290–294
Hässelbarth W, Bremser W, Pradel R (1998) Fresenius J Anal Chem 360:317–321
Levenson MS, Banks DL, Eberhardt KR, Gill LM, Guthrie WF, Liu HK, Vangel MG, Yen JH, Zhang NF (2000) J Res Natl Inst Stand Technol 105:571–579
Griepink B. Personal communication
Bowen HJM (1966) A standard biological material for elementary analysis. In: Shallis PW (ed) Proc SAC conference Nottingham 1965. W Heffer & Sons, Cambridge, pp 1–7
Pauwels J, Lamberty A (2001) Fresenius J Anal Chem 370:111–114
Emons H (2001) Fresenius J Anal Chem 370:115–119
Emons H, Ostapczuk P, Rossbach M, Schladot JD (1998) Fresenius J Anal Chem 360:398–401
Trapmann S, Schimmel HG, Kramer GN (2002) JAOAC 85:775–779
ISO (1989) ISO-guide 35—certification of reference materials—general and statistical principles. Geneva, Switzerland
ISO (2003) Draft—ISO guide 35—certification of reference materials—general and statistical principles. Geneva, Switzerland
Linsinger TPJ, Pauwels J, Lamberty A, Schimmel HG, van der Veen AMH, Siekmann L (2001) Fresenius J Anal Chem 370:183–188
Tydeman MS, Kirkwood TBL (1984) J Biol Standard 12:195–206
Lamberty A, Schimmel HG, Pauwels J (1998) Fresenius J Anal Chem 360:359–361
Linsinger TPJ, Gawlik BM, van der Veen AMH, Lamberty A, Pauwels J, Emons H (2003) Isochronous stability studies of CRMs. Part 1: Concepts (in preparation)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Linsinger, T.P.J., Gawlik, B.M., Trapmann, S. et al. Preservation of sensitive CRMs and monitoring their stability at IRMM. Anal Bioanal Chem 378, 1168–1174 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-003-2214-5
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-003-2214-5