Series Titles: pH Measurements in Complex Matrices
- Part I - pH Measurements in water quality monitoring and assessment
- Part II- pH Measurements of clinical, biochemical and environmental relevance
- To implement traceability chains for pH values in routine measurements in order to achieve target uncertainties for specific applications.
- To develop educational and quality control tools for reference and testing laboratories under the observation of chemical and metrological principles.
- To improve the comparability and the assessment of pH values.
The most often measured chemical parameter, pH, has driven the awareness of scientists and decision makers to the need for reliable analytical results. Its unique feature of being defined in terms of a single ion activity, the multiplicity of practical steps and assumptions involved in the assessment of pH values for primary reference buffer solutions and the diversity of secondary methods, give a slight overview of the multidisciplinarity of the subject with multifold implications. After the production of the IUPAC paper "
The Measurement of pH. Definitions, Standards, and Procedures (IUPAC Recommendations 2002)", Pure Appl. Chem. 74, 2169-2200 (2002), a workshop "Importance of Traceable pH Measurements in Science and Technology conducted at PTB/Braunschweig, Germany, in September 2001, organized and promoted by members of this Project's Task Group, with a wide range of participants, revealed priorities and showed a strong request from the concerned community for continuing action of the task group, on
- Educational efforts on the calculation of the uncertainty of pH values;
- Elaboration of recommended protocols for specific applications (e.g. quality monitoring and assessment in the different applications of water and in physiological media) by round robin studies, observing the traceability chain, calculating the uncertainty of the sample pH;
- Critical assessment of the existing methods to calculate the hydrogen ion activities and concentrations, allowing extension of the presently adopted model for a wider range of applications.
The proposal aims at covering these objectives. Work is progressing in the frame of the group's research activities and will be submitted to IUPAC for endorsement.
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link to former project of the on the Definition of pH Scales (#551/1/97)