Instrumentation quality assurance

The usefulness of broad spectrum analysis is based upon being able to observe the changes in water quality data represented by differences between chromatograms. Thus, the data analysis involves the interpretation of large quantities of chromatographic data at one time. Therefore, sample and instrument quality assurance becomes extremely critical for reliable comparison of interchromatographic data (J). 

ANSI N42.23-1996 American National Standard measurement and associated instrument quality assurance for radioassay laboratories... 

Apart from innovative work, RMs are essential during exerdses such as the introduction to a laboratory of a method from elsewhere or the transfer of an established method onto new instrumentation. Even where the conditions for the analysis have been standardized by the manufacturer of a reagent kit, some validation work should still be undertaken so as to have documented data for quality assurance purposes, e.g. accreditation, as a basis for IQC, for later reference when problems which may be related to equipment, reagents or staff etc. need to be investigated. 

Quality assurance of radiopharmaceutical preparation and use is obviously a very important topic because of its direct impact on patient diagnosis, treatment and health (see, e.g. Abreu 1996). Reference materials play only a small - but nevertheless important -role in this process, mainly in the area of calibration of radioactivity-measuring instruments. The materials of interest are all pure chemical containing calibrated activities of selected radionuclides used commonly in nuclear medicine (e.g. Co, Ga, I,... 

The use of reference samples for method calibration and development/validation occurred hand-in-hand with the development of all modern instrumental methods of analysis. In fact, the two developments are intimately linked with one another. As already noted, G-i and W-i (Fairbaim et al. 1951 Stevens i960) illustrate first instance of reference samples specifically developed for calibration purposes. Following that, the use of BCR-i as a reference sample throughout the lunar program (Science 1970) is a prime illustration of the quality assurance and method validation applications in large-scale inter-laboratory measurement programs. 

In the field of RM certification, NAA represents a major analytical technique. It possesses unique quality assurance and self-verification aspects. Not surprisingly, therefore, NAA has been used to certify NIST standard reference materials [470]. By analogy, NAA has also been instrumental in analysing the EC polymer reference materials within the framework of the PERM project [1]. NAA was also used to validate a TXRF procedure for the determination of additives containing Ti, Zn, Br, Cd, Sn, Sb and Pb [56],... 

If one wishes to predict the future of additive analysis in polymers, it is relevant to consider the prospects of further evolution of polymeric and additive materials the influence of legislation and environment instrumental developments and currently unsolved problems. It then becomes clear that additive analysis stands a fair chance remaining in use for some time, certainly in a strongly competitive environment, which will require improved product design specifications, quality assurance and research for new applications. As ideal production environments are rare, customer complaints will also require continuous attention. Government regulations are another reason for continuous analytical efforts. 

Other industrial applications of 2DLC are known and have been used for applications from quality assurance to synthesis research. These applications will drive 2DLC into new areas as many of the applications used in industry cannot easily be obtained by other means. The analysis of polymers and other industrially useful molecules will be aided by further developments in 2DLC column and instrumental methodologies. 

Kress-Rodgers E., Instrumentation for Food Quality Assurance, in Kress-Rodgers, E., editor. Instrumentation and sensors in the food industry. London Woodhead Publishing Ltd., 1998, p.1-34. 

There are two uses of chemical standards in chemical analysis. In the first place, they may be used to verify that an instrument works correctly on a day-to-day basis - this is sometimes called System Suitability checking. This type of test does not usually relate to specific samples and is therefore strictly quality assurance rather than quality control. Secondly, the chemical standards are used to calibrate the response of an instrument. The standard may be measured separately from the samples (external standardization) or as part of the samples (internal standardization). This was dealt with in Section 5.3.2. 

The management of an analytical chemistry laboratory involves a number of different but related operations. Analysts will be concerned with the development and routine application of analytical methods under optimum conditions. Instruments have to be set up to operate efficiently, reproducibly and reliably, sometimes over long periods and for a variety of analyses. Results will need to be recorded and presented so that the maximum information may be extracted from them. Repetitive analysis under identical conditions is often required, for instance, in quality assurance programmes. Hence a large number of results will need to be collated and interpreted so that conclusions may be drawn from their overall pattern. The progress of samples through a laboratory needs to be logged and results presented, stored, transmitted and retrieved in an ordered manner. Computers and microprocessors can contribute to these operations in a variety of ways. 

Oehme, M., et al. (1993). The ultra trace analysis of polychlorinated dibenzop-dioxins and diben-zofurans in sediments from the Arctic (Barents Sea) and Northern North Sea. Methodology and quality assurance. Analytical methods and instrumentation, 1, 153-163. 

A variety of measurement methods have been developed for determining the water activity of food materials and are well described in texts such as Rahman (1995), Wiederhold (1997), and Bell and Labuza (2000). In general, water activity is a relatively easy parameter to measure, which can be an advantage, especially for use in the food industry. Depending on the technique selected, the water activity of a food material can be measured in a time frame of minutes (e.g., electronic instrument). In addition, individuals can be trained, with a limited amount of instruction, to make water activity measurements. Consequently, when appropriate, water activity measurements can be made relatively quickly by personnel overseeing a manufacturing line for quality assurance purposes. Measurement protocols, such as calibration procedures and proper temperature control, should be implemented to assure the accuracy of online c/w measurements. 

In the analysis of solid samples (e.g., LA-ICP-MS, SEM), synthetic standards cannot easily be prepared to the required concentrations, and accurate calibration of such techniques is often challenging. In some cases (e.g., SEM) pure element or single mineral standards are used, ideally with an appropriate standard for each element to be quantified. (It is possible in SEM, within limits, to use fewer standards than the number of elements to be determined, with the calibration for other elements being predicted from the response of the nearest element.) More often, however, multielement primary standards are used as the means of calibrating the instrument, e.g., for LA-ICP-MS of glasses, volcanics, and ceramics, two glass standards, NIST 610 and 612 (Pearce et al. 1996), are often used. It is always advisable to use more than one multielement standard in order to cover as wide a range of concentrations as possible, and to use at least one additional independent reference material as an unknown, for quality assurance purposes (see below). 

H.Fr. Schroeder, In D. Barcelo (Ed.), Techniques and Instrumentation in Analytical Chemistry Sample Handling and Trace Analysis of Pollutants-Techniques, Applications and Quality Assurance, vol. 21, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 828. 

Quality assurance measures such as pre-analytical checks on instrumental stability, wavelength calibration, balance calibration, tests on resolution of chromatography columns, and problem diagnostics are not included. For present purposes they are regarded as part of the analytical protocol, and IQC tests their effectiveness together with the other aspects of the methodology. 

As in many such problems, some form of pretreatment of the data is warranted. In all applications discussed here, the analytical data either have been untreated or have been normalized to relative concentration of each peak in the sample. Quality Assurance. Principal components analysis can be used to detect large sample differences that may be due to instrument error, noise, etc. This is illustrated by using samples 17-20 in Appendix I (Figure 6). These samples are replicate assays of a 1 1 1 1 mixture of the standard Aroclors. Fitting these data for the four samples to a 2-component model and plotting the two first principal components (Theta 1 and Theta 2 [scores] in... 

---