Innovative reference material for improving the quality control in the sucroenergetic sector

Analytical techniques in the sucroenergetic sector can now for the first time be supported by an innovative matrix-matching reference material produced from sugarcane leaves. This will further enhance the validity of the measurement results and contribute significantly to the quality assurance of plant nutrition analysis. The candidate reference material obtained had a low residual moisture and appropriate particle size. Neutron activation analysis was used to determine the mass fraction of Al, Br, Ca, Cl, Ce, Co, Cs, Cu, Fe, Hf, K, La, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, P, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sm, Sr, Th, V and Zn, and the Kjeldahl method for N. Statistical techniques were applied to evaluate minimum sample mass and within-bottle homogeneity (ANOVA, Tukey test and PCA) and between-bottles homogeneity (ANOVA). It is demonstrated in this paper that the material is homogeneous using 50 mg mass sample for most chemical elements. However, sample masses of 200 mg or greater are required for Co, Na, Sb and V.