Limit of detection (LOD)

The lowest concentration of analyte that produces a signal reliably distinguishable from the instrument noise, conventionally three times the standard deviation of the blank. LOD sets the floor for what an instrument can find; ICP-MS sits in the parts-per-trillion range for most metals, GC-MS in the low nanogram per millilitre range, and a UV-Vis spectrophotometer in the low microgram per millilitre range.

Explained in these topics

Chromatographic Techniques: TLC, HPLC, HPTLC and GLC
Introduction and Scope of Instrumental Techniques in Forensic Science
Reference Standards, Certified Reference Materials and the Quantification Baseline

Related terms

Certified reference material (CRM)Confirmatory technique Hyphenated technique Instrumental technique Internal standard (IS)ISO 17034 Limit of Quantification (LOQ)Linearity Measurement uncertainty (MU)Metrological traceability Mobile phase NIST SRM (Standard Reference Material)

Limit of detection (LOD)

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Related terms

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