IMPROVED ESTIMATION OF THE LIMIT OF DETECTION IN MULTIVARIATE CALIBRATION

The limit of detection is one of the most important performance charac teristics of an analytical procedure. This paper critically examines a recently introduced expression for estimating a multivariate limit of detection. The main result is that the proposed expression is inconsi stent. An application from inductively coupled plasma - optical emissi on spectrometry (ICP-OES) shows that the true limit of detection may b e overestimated by more than 20%. In addition, the practical evaluatio n of the proposed expression amounts to an iterative procedure, which is unattractive from an application point of view. A modification is d erived that solves both problems. The relevant expressions are discuss ed with respect to their interpretability in terms of experimental des ign.