TECH Brief 6 – Assessment of Instrumental Drift during Calibration of a Spectrometer

To assess if there is significant statistical drift in an analytical instrument during the calibration phase, calibration standards are run in random order as replicates and plotted against the residuals of the linear regression line. Any significant drift will be seen in the residuals as a definite non-random pattern. An exception to this method is that the regression data needs to demonstrate significant linearity.