CRMs are most commonly used in the mining industry to monitor bias in chemical analyses of geological samples. Critical concentrations in mining operations are cutoff and head grades and CRMs are generally selected to approximate these grades. CRMs are usually inserted at a frequency of 1 in 20 to 1 in 30 into the sample stream and the results produced by the laboratory are then compared against the certified values. CRM blanks are devoid of the metal(s) of interest and are used to monitor contamination within the laboratory.

Control Limits

No analytical method is 100% accurate and therefore a certain amount of error is tolerated. This margin of error is variously referred to as a window of acceptability, control limit or performance gate. Generally, results lying within two (or sometimes three) standard deviations either side of the certified value are deemed acceptable, although precise application of control limits should be at the discretion of the QC manager concerned.

There are various methods used to determine the standard deviation. These methods are empirically derived and based on an analysis of errors contributing to the spread of results obtained in the round robin certification program. These are laboratory measurement errors and sampling errors. Measurement errors include between-laboratory bias, between-batch bias (reproducibility errors) and within-batch precision (repeatability errors). Sampling errors relate to the level of homogeneity of the CRM and should be negligible in comparison with measurement errors.

Confidence Interval

It is an ISO requirement that Certificates of Analysis include a measurement of uncertainty of the certified value. This is generally expressed as a 95% Confidence Interval and should not be confused with Control Limits.

Put simply, Control Limits provide an expectation of acceptable laboratory performance while Confidence Intervals provide an estimate of the reliability of the certified value.

Tolerance Interval

This parameter is a measure of homogeneity of the CRM. ORE have pioneered a method of reduced analytical subsampling for evaluating the homogeneity of gold in CRMs. This involves the analysis of gold by high precision neutron activation analysis (NAA) on analytical subsample weights of 0.5 gram (compared to 25-50 grams for the fire assay method). By employing a sufficiently reduced subsample weight in a series of determinations by the same method, analytical error becomes negligible when compared with subsampling error. The corresponding standard deviation at a 25-50 gram subsample weight can then be determined from the observed standard deviation of the 0.5 gram data using the known relationship between the two parameters (Ingamells, C. O. and Switzer, P. (1973), Talanta 20, 547-568). The absolute homogeneity of gold is then determined from tables of factors for two-sided tolerance limits for normal distributions. All OREAS and custom gold CRMs undergo this stringent testing and without exception exhibt a very high level of repeatability consistent with excellent homogeneity.