The present publication begins a cycle of papers of specialists from the Scientific Methodical Centre at the State Service of Reference Materials for Composition and Properties of Substances and Materials. These papers will be devoted to the problematic issues of forming and developing the national market of reference materials in terms of requirements imposed by the current legislation of the Russian Federation concerning of measurement uniformity assurance, technical regulation and accreditation in the national accreditation system.

Publications are aimed at giving the reader an insight into the common practice of development and use of reference materials of various categories, state regulation procedures when producing and using reference materials taking into account modern requirements in the field of metrological assurance and measurement uniformity in Russia and abroad, together with necessity and importance of harmonization in the field of reference materials, as well as some other aspects of this activity.

This paper discusses main aspects concerning the state of the reference materials market in the Russian Federation and suggestions on its development taking into account modern requirements. The role of state regulation when creating the national market of reference materials in the Russian Federation is shown. The paper specifies possible directions for reference materials production, meeting modern metrological requirements imposed on measurements in the sphere of the state regulation of measurement uniformity assurance. 

Purpose. This paper is devoted to investing of the effect of magnetic viscosity on the results of measurements of the main hysteresis characteristics of hard magnetic alloys in an open magnetic circuit of vibrating sample magnetometer.

Materials and methods. The studies were performed on a sample of a rapidly quenched nanocrystalline MQP-B+ brand alloy. Hysteresis properties of the alloy in an open magnetic circuit are studied: hysteresis loop, time dependences of magnetization in demagnetizing fields of different intensity, field dependences of the coefficient of magnetic viscosity and irreversible magnetic susceptibility.

Results. The dependences of the measurement results of the hysteresis properties on the measurement conditions are established. It is shown that magnetic viscosity must be taken into account when developing hard magnetic reference materials. 

Introduction. Slag-forming mixtures play an important role in obtaining metal without non-metallic inclusions. Required properties of slag-forming mixtures (SFMs) directly depend on their chemical composition, that is why control of individual component content in a mixture is an important stage in the technological chain of metallurgical production. At the present time, it is a common practice to use inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES for analyzing SFMs, requiring sample preparation by alloying with alkali fluxes, which makes it impossible to determine potassium and sodium oxides in a sample. That is why it is necessary to work out a procedure for simultaneous determination of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, potassium, and sodium oxides by the method of ICP-AES, which would include quantitative transferring of all components into a solution. For that purpose, it is suggested to use microwave digestion of samples in autoclaves.

The purpose was to develop a procedure for simultaneous determination of specified components of SFMs using ICP-AES after transferring the sample into a solution in an autoclave under conditions of microwave heating, and to certify it reference materials of slag and fluxes.

Materials and methods. Compositional analysis of slag-forming mixtures was conducted using an atomic emission spectrometer with inductively coupled plasma «iCAP 6500 Duo»; sample digestion was conducted with the use of the microwave system «ETHOS PLUS». The following brands of SFMs were chosen as research objects: Melubir 9563 and Accutherm ST-SP/235AL4D; AlsifluxGS-C7; SRCP015, SRCP173P. For calibrating the spectrometer and controlling correctness of determining the specified components, the following reference materials were used: reference materials of blast furnace slag, steelmaking slag, converter slag, and fused fluxes, which have close chemical composition.

Research results. An ICP-AES analysis procedure has been developed for calibrating the spectrometer and controlling correctness of determining CaO, SiO2 , MgO, Al2 O3 , K2 O, Na2 O in reference materials of blast furnace slag, steelmaking slag, converter slag and fused fluxes, which allows to establish target components of SFMs quickly and reliably. 

This section is devoted to the main focus of EURACHEM (a European network of metrology organizations in analytical chemistry) regulatory and guidance activities, strategic plans and tasks, discussion of document drafts and planned events.

This announcement covers issues of laboratory participation in «Proficiency Testing Schemes» and gives information on EURACHEM Guide on this matter. The translation of the leaflet «Proficiency Testing Schemes and other interlaboratory comparisons» into Russian is presented. The leaflet was prepared by EURACHEM Proficiency Testing Working Group and contains information on types of comparisons, advantages, limitations, and role of proficiency testing in providing measurement quality, use of proficiency testing results in activities of a laboratory. Criteria for choosing proficiency testing schemes, accreditation of proficiency testing providers, educational aspects are considered.