The Essential Aspects of Multivariate Calibration Transfer

Abstract

The technical issues associated with multivariate calibration transfer (or calibration transfer) for spectroscopic instruments using absorption spectroscopy are addressed in this chapter. Calibration transfer refers to a series of analytical approaches or chemometric techniques used to attempt to apply a single spectral database, and the calibration model developed using that database, to two or more instruments, with retained accuracy and precision. One may paraphrase this definition of calibration transfer as, “calibration transfer means the ability for a multivariate calibration to provide the same analytical result for the same sample measured on a second (child) instrument as it does on the instrument on which the calibration model was created (parent instrument)”, as described in H. Mark, and J. Workman, Spectroscopy 2013, 128(2), 1-9. There are many technical aspects involved in successful calibration transfer, related to the measuring instrument reproducibility and repeatability, the reference chemical values used for the calibration, the multivariate mathematics used for calibration, and so forth. Ideally a multivariate model developed on a single instrument would provide a statistically equivalent analysis when used on other instruments following transfer.