Metrology in Africa: role of the CAFMET

This article presents the CAFMET (African Committee of Metrology), a non-profit organization that aims to meet the needs of African countries in the field of metrology. Its objectives are to spread a metrology culture in Africa via various domains in metrology such as, analysis, tests, and calibration. The difficulties of the development of metrology in Africa and the different activities, events and projects of the CAFMET are all presented.     

The role of the Czech Metrology Institute in the field of metrology in chemistry

 The main role of a national metrological institute is to assure metrological traceability in the country. Metrology in chemistry is a developing field with specific features quite different from physical metrology and it is very difficult to establish a metrological system in chemistry based on the work of a single national institute, especially in small countries. For this reason the Czech Metrology Institute (CMI) has helped to establish the Association of National Reference Laboratories (METROCHEM) which is responsible for ensuring the traceability of chemical measurements in the Czech Republic. CMI is expected to carry out reference material certification (according to the Law on metrology) and develop special fields (electrochemistry, moisture and protein in grains).     

Measurement traceability and US IVD manufacturers: the impact of metrology

A goal of clinical laboratory science is to produce accurate and comparable patient test results for a specimen independent of analytical methodology. The In Vitro Diagnostics Directive in Europe has provided the impetus for the U.S. in vitro diagnostic (IVD) industry to adapt the concepts of Metrology, the science of measurement, including measurement traceability and measurement uncertainty. The joint committee for traceability in laboratory medicine has provided a valuable database of internationally recognized reference materials and methods and reference laboratories. Much of the responsibility for measurement traceability falls on IVD manufacturers, but all global stakeholders, including the clinical laboratory profession, government Regulatory bodies, metrology institutes, and the providers of EQA/PT surveys, must cooperate to progress toward this goal. The adaptation of the concepts of Metrology to the clinical laboratory is an appropriate and logical development and it will continue in the twenty-first century.     

IMEP in support of the comparability of measurement results across the Romanian chemical metrology infrastructure

On the basis of quantitative chemical measurements many important decisions are made in support of legislation or in industrial processes or social aspects. For this reason it is important to improve the quality of chemical measurement results and thus make them comparable and acceptable everywhere. The measurement quality is important to enable an equivalent implementation of the European Union regulations and directives across an enlarged EU. In this context, the European Commission–Joint Research Centre–Institute for Reference Materials and Measurement (EC-JRC-IRMM) set up a programme to improve the scientific basis for metrology in chemistry (MiC) in EU candidate countries in the framework of EU enlargement. Several activities were initiated, such as training, fellowships, sponsoring of seminars, conferences and participation in interlaboratory comparisons. To disseminate measurement traceability, IRMM provides through its International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP) an interlaboratory tool to enable the benchmarking of laboratory performance. IMEP emphasizes the metrological aspects of measurement results, such as traceability and measurement uncertainty. In this way it has become a publicly available European tool for MiC. The Romanian Bureau of Legal Metrology – National Institute of Metrology (BRML-INM) actively supports the participation of Romanian authorized and field laboratories in IMEP interlaboratory comparisons. This paper describes the interest of Romanian laboratories participating in this programme, the analytical and metrological problems that became relevant during these exercises and some actions for improvement. The results from Romanian laboratories participating in IMEP-12 (water), IMEP-16 (wine), IMEP-17 (human serum) and IMEP-20 (tuna fish) are presented. To conclude, the educational and training activities at national level organized jointly by the Romanian National Institute of Metrology (INM) and IRMM are also mentioned.     

Metrology in chemistry: Rapid developments in the global metrological infrastructure, the CIPM MRA and its economic and social impact

Over the last decade, significant developments in metrology in chemistry have been observed, triggered by rapidly increasing demands by industry, trade, society, regulators, and accreditation bodies. Internal markets like the European Union, and trade agreements, like those agreed between the EU and the United States, Australia, Japan, and others will only really work when technical barriers to trade caused by non-harmonized measurement and testing systems and lack of international recognition of national measurement standards and certificates issued by the National Metrology Institutes have been taken away. Food safety test results and nutritional values, clinical and environmental measurements have to be comparable and reliable worldwide. Food products from all continents are traded year round on a global basis. Individuals are traveling everywhere. The environment and climate influences all of us.Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at Presented at International Symposium on Metrology in Chemistry, 2004 Beijing, China.     

Regional cooperation in proficiency testing: strategy planning and practical experiences in Western Balkan countries

The article describes the project of regional cooperation in proficiency testing within CARDS 2006 (assistance programme to the Western Balkans), which was coordinated by European Committee for Standardization, European Commission and European Free Trade Association and conducted by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Laboratory of Metrology and Quality. The later is the holder of the national standard for thermodynamic temperature as well as an accredited proficiency testing provider and also accredited as a calibration, testing and inspection laboratory. It is also responsible for graduate study programme Quality Engineering. Proficiency testing was considered as a core activity of the entire project, but additionally as a very appropriate platform for knowledge transfer of EU technical legislation in selected sectors, metrology, testing and quality assurance in general. The project had a high added value for participating laboratories in countries of Western Balkans, because it required an active role of all participating laboratories, assured participation of staff from national metrology institutions, all national accreditation bodies, and was supported by national quality infrastructures, such as standardization, governmental institutions etc. in the entire Western Balkans region. The activities stimulated progress in the area of conformity assessment, added knowledge to the implementation of technical directives and development of the technical part of national legislation and therefore facilitated the process toward the accession to the European Union. The main objective was therefore to organize proficiency testing in those sectors (construction, consumer protection and environment) that were vital in the pre-accession process of countries seeking full implementation of EU technical legislation.     

The role of metrology in chemistry in the upholding of public health and food safety in Hong Kong

The Government Laboratory has been involved in the provision of analytical and advisory services since its formal establishment in 1913 in support of the needs of the community and the commitments of the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. One of the earliest areas of work involves the testing of food samples for maintenance of public health and food safety. Remarkable advances in technology in recent years coupled with the introduction of new policies and regulations, the launching of new international standards and requirements have all contributed to significant and ever-rising demand of accurate, specific, comparable and traceable measurements using the latest technologies for a wide variety of additives, contaminants, residues and genetically modified ingredients in food.Metrology, the science of measurement, has always played a key role in the development and validation of analytical methodologies in the Government Laboratory for the realization of its measurements to the highest level of accuracies and traceability to internationally recognized standards. Besides the application of the latest analytical technologies such as isotope dilution mass spectrometry, tandem mass spectrometry, real-time polymerase chain reactions, etc., the Analytical and Advisory Services Division of the Laboratory develops a quality assurance system in full compliance with the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025 and endeavours to ensure that every analytical methods are validated with the best applicable means and are fit for the intended purposes. In this presentation, the role and application of metrology in chemistry in the measurements pertaining to public health and food safety work undertaken by the Government Laboratory are discussed.Presented at International Symposium on Metrology in Chemistry, 2004 Beijing, China.     

A pilot study (APMP.QM-P19) for the measurement of melamine in milk powder

A pilot study (APMP.QM-P19) of the Asia Pacific Metrology Program for the determination of melamine at two different levels in milk powder was organized in 2010. It was the first interlaboratory comparison programme in measuring melamine in food matrices for metrology institutes in the region. Melamine was chosen as the target analyte because of the recent crises that happened in 2007 and 2008 had caused substantial concern from consumers, food manufacturers, policy makers on food safety and the food testing communities. The objectives of APMP.QM-P19 were to evaluate the testing capability of participants on the quantification of trace level melamine in milk and milk products and to investigate the degree of equivalence with respect to the assigned values. In total, 19 laboratories (11 metrology institutes and eight food testing institutes) enrolled in the study. Analytical techniques reported by participants included liquid chromatography with ultra-violet and tandem mass spectrometry, gas chromatography with high-resolution mass spectrometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Dispersion of analytical data in the two test materials was significant, and normal Gaussian distribution of data was not observed. The median was agreed to be used as the assigned values in the programme. Metrology institutes who employed isotope dilution mass spectrometry technique were found to give more consistent results and higher degree of equivalence than others. The performance of most of the food testing institutes was not satisfactory, and they were encouraged to have a thorough review of their validation procedure and estimation of uncertainty.     

Chemical metrology in New Zealand

Recent developments in international trade will have a significant impact on New Zealand’s measurement infrastructure, especially for chemical metrology. This article describes the background to these developments and outlines the activities of the Measurement Standards Laboratory, New Zealand’s National Metrology Institute, in response to these developments.     

Conformity assessment and metrology: update on the state of affairs

A couple of years ago, ISO CASCO launched a major project of transforming all the existing ISO Guides on conformity assessment to a comprehensive series of ISO standards 17000 being now in various stages of development. As the concept of traceability underpinning all measurements has been a basic mission of metrology, a number of these standards have a direct bearing on metrology. The series is logically based on a definition standard, ISO 17000, giving, among others, a guidance which activities fall under conformity assessment. The fact that calibration does not, might have important consequences which must yet be assessed. A controversial discussion on some issues has been in progress concerning ISO 17011 on accreditation bodies which touches both on national metrology institutes (NMIs) with an accreditation function and on calibration labs at large. ISO 17040 on peer review could be used with an advantage to support mutual recognition arrangements among a limited number of bodies of a specialized expertise (e.g., CIPM MRA among NMIs under the Metre Convention). ISO 17025 has been the most important standard for the metrology community and has undergone a major overhaul taking on board the uncovered requirements from ISO 9001:2000. In general, the paper will give an update on the developments outlined above and discuss the consequences and further steps from the viewpoint of metrology.     

Case study of the effectiveness of a distributed metrology infrastructure for chemical measurements: supporting measurements for the regulated content of proteins in wheat in Slovenia

This paper describes a demonstrator case study of how a distributed metrology institute can bring value to the measurement infrastructure. The example is taken from the food measurement area, where the Metrology Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (MIRS) has set up a collaboration with the Slovenian National Food Reference Laboratory (NFRL) to act as the holder of the reference standard for the measurement of the content of protein in wheat. The responsibilities of the different parties are described; examples of the joint activities are given. The benefits of the co-operation are described in detail.     

A bilateral study for the establishment of comparability in the measurement of ethanol in bioethanol fuel using isotope dilution mass spectrometry

A bilateral comparative study between two metrology institutes was conducted for the determination of ethanol in bioethanol fuel by isotope dilution mass spectrometry. Measurement procedures were independently developed by the Health Sciences Authority (Singapore) and the National Institute of Metrology (People??s Republic of China). The methods used included headspace gas chromatography?Chigh-resolution mass spectrometry, headspace gas chromatography?Cmass spectrometry (GC-MS) and direct injection to GC-MS. An investigation of all potential sources of uncertainty, including a component of uncertainty due to the effect of using different instruments such as gas chromatography?Cflame ionization detector method, commonly adopted for the analysis of organic volatiles, was carried out. The results of the analyses are consistent within the associated measurement uncertainty of each laboratory, reported at approximately 95% confidence level.     

Comparability and recognition of chemical measurement results – an international goal

As a consequence of the globalisation of trade and industry and other human activities, reliability of and confidence in measurement results is increasingly required, also in the field of chemical analysis, so that measurements made in one country will be accepted in other countries without the necessity to repeat them. The prerequisite for confidence is comparability on the basis of known uncertainties which in turn are based on traceability to recognised references. Traceability structures for chemical measurements are required which, by providing calibration means traceable to national standards, allow uncertainty statements to be made at field level, thus establishing comparability. Such traceability structures are now being developed in all industrialised countries. To ensure international comparability, mutual recognition of the national activities in metrology in chemistry is required in addition. The Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for national measurement standards and calibration certificates issued by national metrology institutes, which is currently under way within the framework of the Metre Convention, aimes at providing the necessary international confidence for all kinds of measurements. The field of chemical analysis is included in the international metrological infrastructure through the new Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance (CCQM). Carefully selected key comparison measurements, which cover the most important areas where traceability is required, and which are carried out by national metrology institutes in cooperation with other national institutes entrusted with the provision of part of the national references for chemical measurements, form the basis for declarations of equivalence under the MRA. The results of the first key comparisons and studies carried out so far clearly show that the group of laboratories involved in the key comparisons is capable of establishing the international references (key comparison reference values) for chemical measurements with sufficient accuracy, also in complicated matrices.     

Metrology in chemistry: Part I. Current activities in Europe

 The paper (Parts I and II) reports the results of a survey carried out to assess the current situation in the field of metrology in chemistry within Europe and to identify future needs for work at the European level. Responses to a questionnaire covering 17 economic sectors and distributed to 17 countries plus the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC JRC), together with input from a project group, EURACHEM and EUROMET provided the basis of the study. The questionnaire responses clearly indicated that only a minority of countries had clearly defined responsibilities for policy, funding and technical leadership. Similarly only a small number of countries was able to provide any information about levels of funding. Nonetheless, a variety of work is in progress and in some countries the effort is considerable. In other countries discussion is in progress and /or work is beginning. Part I covers the protocol for the study and reports current activities. Part II reports suggestions for future work, a strategy for metrology in chemistry and recommendations for the EC Fifth Framework Programme. Received: 11 January 1999 / Accepted: 4 January 2000     

Teaching Metrology at the Department of Chemistry of Irkutsk State University

The fundamentals of the three-stage teaching of metrology at the Department of Chemistry of Irkutsk State University are considered. The course Mathematical Theory of Experiment in Chemistry, which consists of two parts, Mathematical Statistics in Chemistry and Mathematical Methods of Experiment Design, is delivered at the first stage. For fourth-year students, the courses Metrology of Analytical Control (a mandatory course for one specialization) and Algorithms for Determining Performance Characteristics in the Certification of Analytical Procedures (an optional course) are taught.     

Purity assessment for 17��-estradiol

Purity assessment for high-purity organic substances is regarded as one of the core competences of national metrology institutes. For this reason, Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance??Metrology in Chemistry (CCQM) regularly organized intercomparison studies to compare and demonstrate the degree of equivalence of national measurement capabilities for purity determination. This paper reports the method development work for the participation in a recent CCQM key comparison on purity assessment for estradiol. An indirect consecutive estimation approach was adopted to determine the purity of the estradiol sample, i.e., through the identification and quantification of all possible impurities present in the sample. In the course of assessment, a variety of analytical techniques were applied. The most challenging part was to identify and estimate the amount of unknown organic-related substance present in the testing material. For the moisture determination, a gas chromatography with thermal conductivity detection (GC?CTCD) method was employed to supplement the results obtained using coulometric Karl Fischer titration technique. Inorganic impurities and volatile organic compounds residual were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP?CMS) and gas chromatography?Cmass spectrometry (GC?CMS) techniques, respectively, and their contributions were found to be comparatively insignificant.     

Metrological traceability chain for PCBs: I.N.Ri.M. activity

Metrology in chemistry has its own features, which distinguish it from classical metrology: due to the lack of primary methods applicable in routine measurements, metrological traceability of measurement results can be achieved by using in a proper way suitable certified reference materials (CRMs), which can assure a direct relation to a reference. This article deals with the activity of the Italian National Institute of Metrological Research (Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica—I.N.Ri.M.) on the analysis of various polychlorinated biphenyls congeners in organic solution by means of gas-chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The metrological traceability approach in the quantification step is pursued via calibration solutions prepared by gravimetrically diluting a CRM. The uncertainty for the calibration solutions was evaluated taking into account all the relevant contributions.     

The consequences of the mutual recognition of measurement standards for international metrology

After stressing the importance in the modern world of accurate and reproducible measurements, the actions taken by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures to set up, together with the regional metrology organizations, a series of key comparisons are described. They are the technical foundation of a mutual recognition of national measurement standards arrangement prepared in conjunction with the National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). This arrangement also includes the recognition of calibration and measurement certificates issued by these institutes. Then, the consequences of this arrangement for trade are described. The case of chemical analysis is illustrated by the application of the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases. But the global workload to be taken up by the International Committee of Weights and Measures, its Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance and the NMIs is huge.     

The role of the CCQM OAWG in providing SI traceable calibrators for organic chemical measurements

Metrological traceability for organic chemical measurements is a documented unbroken chain of calibrations with stated uncertainties that ideally link the measurement result for a sample to a primary calibrator in appropriate SI units (e.g., mass fraction). A comprehensive chemical purity determination of the organic calibrator is required to ensure a true assessment of this result. We explore the evolution of chemical purity capabilities across metrology institute members of the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance: Metrology in Chemistry and Biology’s Organic Analysis Working Group (OAWG). The OAWG work program has promoted the development of robust measurement capabilities, using indirect “mass balance” determinations via rigorous assessment of impurities and direct determination using quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy methods. A combination of mass balance and qNMR has been shown to provide a best practice approach. Awareness of the importance of the traceability of organic calibrators continues to grow across stakeholder groups, particularly in key areas such as clinical chemistry where activities related to the Joint Committee for Traceability in Laboratory Medicine have raised the profile of traceable calibrators.

     

The consequences of the mutual recognition of measurement standards for international metrology

 After stressing the importance in the modern world of accurate and reproducible measurements, the actions taken by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures to set up, together with the regional metrology organizations, a series of key comparisons are described. They are the technical foundation of a mutual recognition of national measurement standards arrangement prepared in conjunction with the National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). This arrangement also includes the recognition of calibration and measurement certificates issued by these institutes. Then, the consequences of this arrangement for trade are described. The case of chemical analysis is illustrated by the application of the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases. But the global workload to be taken up by the International Committee of Weights and Measures, its Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance and the NMIs is huge.