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World leading supplier of optical components, spectrophotometer cells and Certified Reference Materials for spectrophotometry, Starna Scientific, has introduced the Starna Optical Polishing Cloth (OPC) to assist laboratory technicians in maintaining the quality of the optical faces of a cuvette, without fear of scratching or damaging the surface. 

To enable precision spectrophotometry applications to produce highly accurate results there is a constant requirement to keep the optical faces of a cuvette clean and in a pristine condition at all times. Even the most basic of UV-Visible spectrophotometers are quite capable of measuring differences caused by micro-scratches, surface contamination, etc. not visible to the naked eye. For this reason, the inappropriate use of lens tissues, and/or abrasive or caustic cleaning agents will cause progressive chronic degradation, which again modern instruments are quite capable of compensating for, long after the cuvette should have been discarded. 

"Also, in this era of instrumental qualification and control, the day-to-day variation of a modern spectrophotometer pales into insignificance when one considers the effect of a fingerprint on the optical face," explained John Hammond, Starna's Technical and Marketing Manager. "

For the above reasons, a similar product to the OPC is routinely used by Starna's own technicians in all areas of the company's manufacturing facilities and within the Starna Certified Reference Material Calibration Laboratory", and is routinely issued as a complimentary product with our Pharmacopoeia compliance kits. 

Starna is the only Certified Reference Material (CRM) producer accredited to both ISO Guide 34 and ISO/IEC 17025 in the UV/Visible/NIR spectral range.  

The CRMs are essential for ISO/IEC accredited laboratories, pharmaceutical QA/QC or metrology departments enabling the provision of Operational Qualification (OQ) and Performance Qualification (PQ) of UV/Visible/NIR instrumentation using ‘Industry Standard' protocols. 

The Starna® Lifetime Guarantee is offered on all Starna® manufactured Certified Reference Materials (CRMs). The guarantee provides for a free of charge replacement should the assigned values move outside the expanded uncertainty budget within the recertification period of two years, subject to conditions of use/care and recertification by Starna at least every two years. 

Visit www.starna.com or call + 44 (0) 20 8501 5550 for more information.