purity of impurity reference standard
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 12:55 am
by martinamarie
Hi, if a material was approximately 60 % pure, could it be used for an impurity reference standard, given that a standard, by definition, has to be pure.
Thx
Tina
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 5:59 pm
by tom jupille
If that's the best you can do, the answer is a qualified "yes". The qualifications:
- do you have a way of finding out exactly how pure it is? If yes, then you can correct the response accordingly
- are the "impurities in the impurities" likely to interfere with anything else?
- What kind of precision do you require for the measurement of that impurity? At the trace level, 15-25% may be acceptable, in which case you may only need to know your standard to a few percent.