Trace Analysis

As supplier of chemicals and biochemicals, quality assurance is of prime importance for Fluka. The following information should serve as a basis for supplier reliance. We hold a comprehensive Quality Assurance System according to EN 29001 (ISO 9001). Each product in our program (~20 000) is provided with clear, guaranteed specifications. The large variety of modern analytical methods (e.g. ICP-OES, ICP-MS, flame-AAS, graphite furnace AAS, X-ray diffraction, various HPLC methods, GC and GC-MS, 300 MHz-NMR, FT-IR, etc.) allows a specific tailor-made control and analysis for each product. Each catalogue pack is labelled, giving the batch and filling number. This allows supervision of the complete history of the product. Besides the specification, the labels of many chemicals contain a warranty of supplementary chemical and physical properties, such as the highest limit for foreign substances as traces. New products are governed by a defined test cycle, to obtain for example stability data and packaging compatability.

A data processing system takes care of stock supervision and prevents overaging. Each product batch is tested by our quality control department to maintain our given specifications.

The test program consists in general of:

• appearance, solubility
• physical data
• determination of assay and impurities
• identification tests
• application tests
• trace impurities

On the basis of this quality assurance and control system Fluka offers a comprehensive program for the determination of trace elements starting with reagents for sample preparation, including master standard solutions for instrument calibration, certified reagents used as secondary standards, various auxiliary compounds and finally reagents for the actual measurement. Because all these reagents are used for the determination of trace elements in various samples, special analytical testing is done to ensure that each reagent has the guaranteed purity and low impurity level which is needed for its special application.