Before embarking on the development of a new method, always research the chemical literature to see if a suitable one already exists. If a suitable one is found, it will still be necessary however to perform some method validation to prove that the method can be successfully adapted to your laboratory, equipment and personnel. More extensive validation is required for a brand new method. Methods in any field of analysis may be defined in terms ‘Method performance characteristics’ and it is these parameters plus a few others, that are quantified during a method validation exercise