Laboratory Excellence and Accreditation

Analytical Chemistry Methods for Quality Control Laboratories

A quality control laboratory is judged on whether its numbers can be defended, not on how sophisticated its instruments are, and most disputes trace back to sampling or method validation rather than to the analysis itself. This course works from that. Delegates work through sampling and the ways a sample stops representing the material before it reaches the bench, sample preparation, digestion and extraction, and the losses each introduces. Method selection against the specification being tested follows. Titrimetric, spectrophotometric and chromatographic techniques are covered on what each is suited to. Method validation is treated properly: specificity, linearity, accuracy, precision, detection and quantitation limits. Calibration curves and the errors hidden in them are addressed. Quality control charts, replicates and reference materials follow. The course closes on reporting results with their uncertainty and on investigating a result that does not fit.