How do I reconstitute freeze-dried Standard Reference Materials and what are the final reconstituted volumes?
The lyophilized (freeze-dried) materials, e.g. human serum or urine are in powdered form in the glass vials and are stored at refrigerator temperatures to maintain stability. These freeze-dried powders are produced in a special process where the water is removed from the liquid matrix (serum or urine) in the vials and the concentrated powder remains. The resulting powders are much more stable over a longer period of time. The user must reconstitute or add water to the powders in the vials with a specified volume of water as designated typically in the first paragraph of the SRM’s certificate of analysis. These volumes historically have not been listed on the SRM web detail pages or in the sales software. The unit size for the SRM has always been described only as a set, e.g. 6 x 6 or a set of (2 vials).
