SI-traceable characterisation of the first reference material for nanoparticle number concentration in suspension to support regulatory compliance.

Reference materials (RMs) are increasingly needed to support number-based characterisation of nanomaterials (NM) in a regulatory context for the purpose of method development, validation and measurement quality control. To date, RMs for number concentration in suspension with a directly assigned value that is SI traceable have been rather scarce, being the LGCQC5050 the only material commercialised so far. This could be attributed to the limited availability of metrologically validated measurement methods and stability challenges associated with long-term storage of NM suspensions.