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For the first time, an international comparison was conducted on the determination of the purity of a high purity element. Participants were free to choose any analytical approach appropriate for their institute’s applications and services. The material tested was a high purity zinc, which had earlier been assessed for homogeneity and previously used in CCQM-K72 for the determination of six defined metallic impurities. Either a direct metal assay of the Zn mass fraction was undertaken by EDTA titrimetry, or an indirect approach was used wherein all impurities, or at least the major ones, were determined and their sum subtracted from ideal purity of 100 %, or 1 kg/kg. Impurity assessment techniques included glow discharge mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and carrier gas hot extraction/combustion analysis. Up to 91 elemental impurities covering metals, non-metals and semi-metals/metalloids were quantified. Due to the lack of internal experience or experimental capabilities, some participants contracted external laboratories for specific analytical tasks, mainly for the analysis of non-metals. The reported purity, expressed as zinc mass fraction in the high purity zinc material, showed excellent agreement for all participants, with a relative standard deviation of 0.011 %. The calculated reference value, w(Zn) = 0.999 873 kg/kg, was assigned an asymmetric combined uncertainty of + 0.000025 kg/kg and – 0.000028 kg/kg. Comparability amongst participating metrology institutes is thus demonstrated for the purity determination of high purity metals which have no particular difficulties with their decomposition / dissolution process when solution-based analytical methods are used, or which do not have specific difficulties when direct analysis approaches are used. Nevertheless, further development is required in terms of uncertainty assessment, quantification of non-metals and the determination of purity of less pure elements and/or for those elements suffering difficulties with the decomposition process.
Millions of measurements are performed each year by liquid based analytical atomic spectrometry to support healthcare, diagnostic tests, environmental monitoring, material assay, product development and safety. Despite the effort to develop absolute methods, most methods still depend on calibration solutions, which are gravimetric mixtures of high purity solvents and high purity (source material) metals or compounds. As in the real world ideal purity does not exist, the impurity of the solvent and the purity of the source material needs to be known. The impurity of a solvent with respect to one analyte can be measured rather easily and with low limits of determination. In contrast the measurement of the purity of the source material, i.e., the mass fraction of the main constituent in a high purity metal, is more difficult to determine. It becomes even more difficult when the source material is not a pure metal but a compound since problems regarding stoichiometry arise additionally. Although the major producers of calibration solutions make a special effort to determine the purity of the source material, the actual purity statement is often incomplete or not demonstrated. The main reason for this situation is the complexity and high effort necessary to fully characterize such a material. This problem holds to a very wide extent also for the primary standards for element determination at the National Metrology Institutes and Designated Institutes (NMIs and DIs). It is the task of the NMIs and DIs to realise and disseminate primary standards for providing traceability to the International System of Units (SI). The primary elemental standards at the NMIs should provide the link to secondary standards produced by commercial producers and other independently prepared standards for element determination. Without such primary standards, elemental calibration solutions may vary and, depending on the uncertainty required, comparability of measurement in time and space results cannot be achieved.