Recovery revisited

During the last decade, various IUPAC documents have presented concepts related to the important ability of a measurement procedure to provide correct quantity values for amount, concentration, or content of a component in a system. The measurement procedure often, but not necessarily, includes one or more separation steps prior to the final instrumental reading. The vocabularies present concepts with some definitions and terms that disagree or are ambiguous, mostly revolving around the term recovery and its derivatives. The present proposal consists in defining three concepts with the terms actual quantity, initially estimated quantity, and recovered quantity ratio, where quantity is used in the metrological sense of the international vocabulary of basic and general terms in metrology (BIPM, IEC, IFCC, ILAC, ISO, IUPAC, IUPAP, OIML International vocabulary of basic and general terms in metrology, draft, 3rd edn. BIPM, Sèvres, 2005), not as a synonym of amount.

René DybkaerPhone: +45-38-163870Fax: +45-38-163879