The Standards Dilution Calculator That You Have Always Wanted

By now you’re probably familiar with Jason Hoisington’s world-renowned blog series on calibrations and if you’re not, then shame on you! I’ll be nice though and provide the link HERE so that you can get caught up. Now that you’re up to speed on calibrations, I thought that I would add a little something to this series because I didn’t want to miss out on the action!

This blog will focus on giving you something that will hopefully make your life in the lab a little easier. As if figuring out calibrations (number of points, concentrations, etc.) wasn’t already time consuming enough, calculating everything out can be quite a pain. This is why we like to work off of spreadsheets that help us calculate the volumes and concentrations for our stock solutions, working solutions, and calibration samples. If you are not already doing this, then you are in luck today! What we have built is a spreadsheet that will allow you to input the necessary information and calculate everything you should need for making your calibration and internal standard solutions. 

Calibration Calculator Spreadsheet

By clicking on the link above, you can download the spreadsheet. There are three tabs in this excel sheet which includes the Calibration Calculator, Internal Standard Calculator, and Printable Sheet. There are directions on the first two sheets that explain how to use them. The color-coding legend at the top of the sheet will explain what each color means. The only areas that need values entered by the user are colored YELLOW. The Printable Sheet should not need any modification as it pulls all the relevant information into a nice sheet that can be printed and taken into the lab. 

Values have already been entered into some of the locations as an example. You will see that I have selected reference standards related to EPA Method 8270. It should be noted that the example as is should not be used for 8270 because arbitrary values were selected for the calibration concentrations. 

Hopefully, this spreadsheet is straight forward and makes your lives a little easier when making calibration calculations!