Quality assurance of qualitative analysis in the framework of the European project ’MEQUALAN’

Abstract The European Commission has supported the G6MA-CT-2000–01012 project on ”Metrology of Qualitative Chemical Analysis” (MEQUALAN), which was developed during 2000–2002. The final result is a document produced by a group of scientists with expertise in different areas of chemical analysis, metrology and quality assurance. One important part of this document deals, therefore, with aspects involved in analytical quality assurance of qualitative analysis. This article shows the main conclusions reported in the document referring to the implementation of quality principles in qualitative analysis: traceability, reliability (uncertainty), validation, and internal/external quality control for qualitative methods.