In order to meet our quality standards and the expectations of our customers, the high purity products of PPM Pure Metals GmbH are subject to a constant quality control. Thus, the company has its own laboratory with various analytical devices (GDMS, AAS, ICP etc.) and capabilities of different analytical methods. In the event of bottlenecks, lack of know-how or in need of external confirmation of internal analysis results, the PPM has a broad network of external, specialized analysis service providers. Whether the analysis is done internally or externally, there is a requirement for both alternatives: the ability to analyze impurities – depending on the quality of the product – in “ppb” or “ppm” range. Some may know that the acronym “ppb” stands for “parts per billion”, but what this exactly means is beyond the imagination of the most.
To illustrate the particular strength of our in-house analysis capabilities, the following example is given: Let us take the case, we had the task of identifying a group of people with a rare disease among the 8 billion people living on earth. With the analytical abilities, we would now be able to pinpoint the exact number of ill people, if more than 8 people were sick. If there were less than 8 patients, we would “only” have the knowledge about this fact – which is known as the limit of quantification.
Analyzes in “ppm” range (“parts per million”) on the other hand – the acronym, by the way, our company owes its name – are somewhat imprecise. Analogously to the above example, we would be able to pinpoint the exact number of people, if more than 8,000 people were infected. If the number of people was less than this critical size (limit of quantification), we had to consider this figure as given.