LECO Corporation has broadened its accreditation for Reference Materials under the A2LA Accreditation Program for Reference Material Producers, in compliance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The program sets forth criteria for the production of Reference Materials and Certified Reference Materials based on the quality standards outlined in ISO Guide 34:2009. LECO manufactures reference materials using these accreditation guidelines, adding customer confidence that these materials have met international standards for quality.
The scope of accreditation was expanded to include organic Reference Materials comprising of solid fuels (coal and coke), petroleum products (fuels and lubricants), and environmental materials (soils, ash) for gross calorific value, volatile matter, ash, and LOI composition by isoperibol combustion calorimetry or thermogravimetric analysis. This expansion enhances the original scope of accreditation which covered inorganic Reference Materials including ferrous and nonferrous metal, ores and minerals, and organic Reference Materials including solid fuels (coal and coke), petroleum products (fuels and lubricants), and environmental materials (soils, plant material, ash) for carbon, sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and mercury elemental composition by combustion or inert gas fusion.
Accreditation for LECO’s analytical testing lab also complies with the requirements of ISO Standard 17025 and applicable ASTM standards, certifying that chemical testing performed by the LECO testing lab and its qualified testing specialists, meet the requirements. The new scope of accreditation includes testing by combustion (carbon/sulfur, carbon/hydrogen/nitrogen, mercury), inert gas fusion instrumentation (oxygen/nitrogen/hydrogen), ash fusion (melting point), gross calorific value, and thermogravemetric analysis (moisture/volatile matter/ash, LOI).