JRC makes seven nearly exhausted BCR reference materials available in digital form — IR spectra on the ChemisTwin platform
On 30 June 2026 the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) announced that seven of its certified reference materials (CRMs) nearing physical depletion have been added as digital CRMs to the ChemisTwin platform developed by Merck KGaA. Laboratories compare their own sample signals with them while keeping metrological traceability to a specific CRM sample.
- The principle: what a laboratory actually needs is the instrument signal of the CRM, which it compares with the signal of the unknown sample. Normally it obtains that signal by running the CRM on its own instrument; a digital CRM supplies the signal for a specific sample of the material, linked to the CRM certificate.
- The platform now holds IR spectra of benzo[b]chrysene (BCR-046), benzo[b]fluoranthene (BCR-047), benzo[i]fluoranthene (BCR-049), dibenz[a,i]acridine (BCR-154), fluoranthene (BCR-160R), picene (BCR-168) and 2,2′,3,4,4′,5,5′-heptachlorobiphenyl (BCR-298). If this proves successful, the JRC will add more materials.
- The JRC lists the benefits: structure confirmation and quantification “with just a few clicks”, less time spent on literature research and weighing, no problems maintaining stocks of perishable materials or importing potentially toxic substances, and less transport. Rather than developing its own software, the JRC used an existing platform.
- Merck describes ChemisTwin as a platform of digital reference materials (dRMs) — highly characterised, digitised spectral data derived from certified physical reference materials — for automated interpretation of NMR and FTIR spectra; each dRM is traceable to its physical CRM.
Source: JRC, katalog CRM — Eternal Accuracy: JRC’s Certified Reference Materials Go Digital (30.06.2026)