Standards, protocols and laboratory calculators
Five tools and 11 guides for the people who run the tests: which standard applies to the product in front of you, how much fluid a campaign consumes, what preparing it on your own bench actually costs, and what the certificate that travels with a batch contains.
Work out the answer before you order
Standard and volume planner
Work out how much fluid a campaign needs from the sample count and the immersion ratio your standard sets, then see the cheapest combination of real pack sizes that covers it.
Plan a campaignConcentration and weighing calculator
Convert between mmol/L, g/L, %w/v and ppm for the salts and metabolites these fluids are built from, and get the mass to weigh for a given batch volume, corrected for water of crystallisation.
Open the calculatorStandard cross-reference matrix
Every standard we supply a fluid for, side by side: what the test determines, in what unit the result is reported, the national and regional designations that are the same document, and the pH and storage we actually ship.
Open the matrixIn-house versus ready-to-use cost model
Put a figure on preparing a fluid on your own bench, technician time, analytical-grade salts, ultrapure water and the batches that fail QC, against our catalogue price. It tells you when preparing it yourself is the cheaper answer.
Open the cost modelSpecimen certificate of analysis
See the certificate that ships with every batch before you order one: which parameters are measured, how the specification is written, and what the release statement says. Three specimen batches are published in full.
View a specimen CoAWhich test applies, and how it is actually run
Nickel Release Testing Protocol (EN 1811, EN 16128 & EN 12472)
REACH Annex XVII compliance for jewellery, watches and eyewear: sample area-to-volume ratio (1 cm²/mL), one week at 30 °C, ICP-MS quantitation, and the EN 12472 wear pre-treatment for coated parts.
Read the guideKokubo SBF In-Vitro Bioactivity Protocol (ISO 23317)
Which edition to cite now that 2014 is withdrawn, what a positive result does and does not license you to claim, and why the fluid is only ever metastable.
Read the guideReading a Rothwell Absorption Figure (ISO 11948)
Why practical absorption is about a third of the Rothwell value, why a 13 % inter-laboratory offset makes cross-lab comparisons meaningless, and why the fluid is deliberately plain.
Read the guideDental Alloy Corrosion: Three Tests, Two Fluids (ISO 10271)
Static immersion runs at pH 2.3 and not in saliva, the electrochemical and tarnish tests do use saliva, and the sulphide oxidises in the direction that flatters the alloy.
Read the guideContact Lenses: Which Part of ISO 18369 Applies (ISO 18369)
Part 3 is the equilibrating saline and Part 4 the extractables, neither specifies a protein-bearing tear fluid, and lysozyme concentration is not lysozyme activity.
Read the guideEccrine Sweat & ISO 3160-2: Two Fluids, & Why EN 1811 Will Not Do
The nickel-release fluid is deliberately simple because the measurement is a trace metal figure. A corrosion study needs the opposite: the 16 amino acids that keep metal ions in solution. Why the ISO 3160-2 solution is a different chemistry entirely, and why DIN 53160 belongs with neither.
Read the guideHow Long Does a Simulated Test Fluid Last? The Four Clocks
Enzyme activity, an oxidising sulphide, a supersaturation, or nothing but the container: each fluid is ended by a different mechanism. What shortens it in your own laboratory, and what to ask a supplier who quotes one figure for everything.
Read the guideCatheter Encrustation: What Causes It & What a Bladder Model Can Show
A urease-producing organism raises the pH until the urine can no longer hold its calcium, magnesium and phosphate. Why the pH trajectory is the driver, what prevention strategies get tested against, and why an absorbency fluid never encrusts.
Read the guideColour Fastness to Perspiration: ISO 105-E04, AATCC 15 & Which Edition
Colour fastness, or color fastness, is graded on the grey scale rather than measured as a concentration. Why sweat needs an acid and an alkaline bath, why AATCC 15 is a different test and not half the ISO kit, and how to check the edition you cite.
Read the guideEN 1811, EN 16128, EN 12472 & ISO 12870: Which Nickel-Release Test?
Four standard numbers circulate for one REACH limit. Which applies to jewellery, to a piercing post and to eyewear, why EN 1811 excludes spectacle frames, and when the EN 12472 wear pre-treatment has to come first.
Read the guideRothwell, AUM & Catheter Encrustation Fluid: Artificial Urine Terminology
Three chemically different fluids share the name artificial urine: the ISO 11948-1 Rothwell absorbency fluid, the Griffith/Stickler AUM used for catheter encrustation, and the drug-screen product that is not a test fluid at all.
Read the guide