Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements

Relevant websites are very important sources of informatioa Those interested can have access to latest inputs and publications. Another very useful contact point is IRMM (the Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements) of the European Union. 

IDMS is a definitive analytical method not commonly used by chemists, except in Standards Laboratories (e.g., National Institute of Standards and Technology, Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements) where concentrations must be certified. The Earth Sciences also use IDMS when high accuracy is required, for instance where element ratios are needed to calculate the age of rocks. 

Many thanks are due to the BCR team of the Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements of the European Commission for a fruitful cooperation, and in particular to Jean Pauwels and Gerard Kramer who have provided us with many of the materials (graphs, photographs) which illustrate this book. We would like to thank also Ellen Michel and Emmanuel Lemoine for their help in producing the manuscript. 

Meanwhile, metrological institutions, such as the Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) in Geel, Belgium, and the Bundesanstalt fur Materialforschung und -priifung (BAM) (the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) in Berlin, Germany, distribute certified spike solutions [18, 19], for example, for boron, uranium, plutonium, copper, and zinc. 

Another major supplier of stable isotope reference materials is the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) in Geel, Belgium. These materials... 

Initial efforts by workers at the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurement (IRMM), Geel, Belgium, to produce certified reference materials for GMOs have demonstrated that the provision of suitable reference materials is not easy and that together with the development of suitable analytical methods there are many challenges to be solved ahead. The first two examples produced jointly by the IRMM in Belgium and Fluka Chemie AG in Switzerland were based on Round-Up Ready Soya and BT 176 Maize. The reference materials are needed to validate EU and Swiss regulations which permit non-GMO products to be contaminated by up to 1 % GMO material and still be accepted. 

Tab. 6.6 Examples of biological, food, agricultural and related RMs for chemical composition available from, principally, government agency suppliers (Ihnat 1988,1992,1998a International Atomic Energy Agency 1998 Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements 1999 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1995 Trahey 1998) ...

Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (Geel, Belgium) International Organization for Standardization (Geneva, Switzerland) International Union of Crystallography International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry... 

Table 8.1. Comparison of experimentally obtained results of copper content (pig/g) and the reference value of the material BCR277 (Institute for Reference Materials and Measurement, Belgium) number of repetitions nexp=10...

Some reference material producers/suppliers use different names to describe their materials. For example, a Standard Reference Material (SRM) is a certified reference material issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), while European Reference Materials (ERMs) are CRMs produced under a joint collaboration between three European reference materials producers, i.e. BAM (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Germany), IRMM (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, Belgium) and LGC (UK). 

A limited selection of environmental reference materials is also available from the European Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements in Belgium http // www.irmm.jrc.be/... 

For application in the isotope dilution technique and for tracer experiments using isotope enriched spikes, Merck (Darmstadt, Germany) have launched the production of new sets of isotopically enriched materials, such as 53Cr or mCd enriched spike calibration solutions, which were characterized by the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM, Geel, Belgium).52... 

One problem is the availability of reliable reference materials for isotope ratio measurements. Certified isotope standard reference materials are available from NIST (National Institute of Standard Reference Materials, http //www.nist.gov/srd/, formerly NBS - National Bureau of Standards) and IRMM (Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, http //www.irmm.jrc.de). There are isotope standard reference materials for light elements (H, Li, , C, N, O), Mg (magnesium metal isotopic standard NIST SRM 980), and for moderately heavy elements such as (potassium chloride isotopic standard NIST SRM 985), Cr (chromium metal isotopic standard NIST... 

Systems of classification very often follow the application fields, e.g. the catalogues of the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC), etc. or the database for certified reference materials COMAR. In all application fields like food and agriculture, environment, health and safety, industry and services, etc., reference materials are used for ... 

Certified isotopic standards are available for some elements but by no means all. Such standards are available from the National Institute of Standards and Technology [52] and New Brunswick Laboratory [53] in the United States, and from the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements [54] in Belgium. De Bievre et al. have published a review of reference materials available for isotope ratio measurements [55]. It is clearly desirable to use certified materials for instrument calibration if at all possible. If no standard is available for the element in question, the analyst has little choice but to obtain a pure sample of it and assume it has the composition listed by IUPAC [1]. A few elements, with lead being the outstanding example, have isotopic compositions that vary widely in... 

To assess the method bias of an analytical method, the appropriate RMs should be chosen. A list of available BCR RMs can be found on the website of the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) of the Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Geel Establishment (www.irmm.jrc.be/rm/ intro.html). The validity of assessing the method bias by means of RMs depends on the assumption that the analytical method is otherwise unbiased as well as on the range of appropriate matrix RMs available. It should not be overlooked, however, that there may be a matrix mismatch between the test material and the most appropriate RMs available [32]. 

P. Taylor, K. Brinkmann, I. Papadakis, L. Cortez, M. Bednarova, Y. Aregbe, Announcing the Collaboration between the European Co-operation for Accreditation and the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements improving the metrological basis of the European Accreditation System for Chemical Measurements, Accred. Qual. Assur., 1 (2002), 168. 

The issues of method validation and assessment of measurement uncertainty in the determination of potentially toxic trace elements in rice are of permanent interest for the scientific community. In this context, the sources of uncertainty associated with the determination of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn have been recently estimated in rice through an interlaboratory comparison [30]. Four Brazilian laboratories participated in the proficiency test. The analytical technique used were FAAS, ET-AAS, and ICP-AES. The rice samples were supplied by the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), Joint Research Center of the European Commission, within the scope of the interlaboratory comparison International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP) 19 Trace Elements in Rice (see also Chapter 7 in this book). Three out of the four laboratories reported values close to the reference values. It was emphasized that, in order to establish a reliable uncertainty budget, all significant sources of uncertainty should be identified. 

Suppliers. BCR, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), Belgium NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States NRCC, National Research Council of Canada. Classifications CRM, Certified Reference Material DORM, Dogfish Muscle Reference Materials for Trace Metals LUTS, Nondefatted Lobster Hepatopancreas Reference Material for Trace Metals SRM, Standard Reference Material TORT, Lobster Hepatopancreas Marine Reference Material for Trace Metals. 

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