Standard reference materials for chemical and biological studies of complex environmental samples

Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are often used in methods development and interlaboratory comparison studies since they are homogeneous and readily available to the scientific community. SRM 1649 (urban dust/organics), SRM 1650 (diesel particulate matter), and SRM 1597 (complex mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from coal tar) are three environmental samples which have been used by the scientific community for these purposes. These SRMs were originally developed to assist laboratories in validating analytical procedures for the determination of polycyclic organic compounds in complex mixtures. In addition, these SRMs have been valuable for the comparison of methodologies for bacterial bioassays and the development of bioassay-directed fractionation and bioassay-directed chemical analysis techniques. Most recently these SRMs were chosen for use as test samples in a collaborative study coordinated by the World Health Organization--International Programme on Chemical Safety. This paper provides a summary of much of the work to date (published and unpublished) on the chemical and biological characterization of these three SRMs. Information regarding the availability of other NIST SRMs that might be useful for these types of studies are provided also.