Recent certification of reference materials by the Community Bureau of Reference for, in particular, environmental analysis

Reference materials are necessary to improve or to maintain a high quality of analysis. to avoid bias as fas as possible, the BCR certifies reference materials on the basis of results of different mehtods used by different laboratories. A proper selection if good methods and laboratories makes it possible to obtain excellent agreement and narrow confidence intervals. Neutron activation techniwues are suited for many key elements; their results are in good agreement with those of other techniques. (author)