CSTL is the primary reference laboratory for chemical measurements, entrusted with developing, maintaining, advancing, and enabling the chemical measurement system for the United States of America, thereby enhancing industry's productivity and competitiveness, establishing comparability of measurements to facilitate equity of global trade, and improving public health, safety, and environmental quality.

CSTL has focused its activities along eleven programmatic lines: Automotive and Aerospace, Biomaterials, Pharmaceuticals and Biomanufacturing, Chemical and Allied Products, Energy Systems, Environmental Technologies and Services, Health and Medical Products/Services, Industrial and Analytical Instruments and Services, Forensics and Homeland Security, Microelectronics, and Food and Nutritional Products. These Programs are structured to support CSTL's three goals:

• Provide the national traceability and international comparability structure for measurements in chemistry, chemical engineering, and biotechnology, and provide the fundamental basis of the nation's measurement system
• Assure that U.S. industry has access to accurate and reliable data and predictive models to determine the chemical and physical properties of materials and processes
• Anticipate and address next-generation measurement needs of the Nation

CSTL is a multifaceted, synergistic organization with a unique customer base. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the CSTL customer-base is its breadth. The primary customers we serve are: industry; federal, state, and local government agencies; standards and industrial trade organizations; and the academic and scientific communities. U.S. industry is the largest consumer of our products and services. These customers come from established industrial sectors, such as the chemical manufacturers, and emerging industries, such as biotechnology.

The products and services that CSTL's industrial customers rely on include Standard Reference Materials, Standard Reference Data, Calibration Services, and unique, state-of-the-art measurement methods. Reference materials and calibrations provide traceability to the International System of Units (SI), which is essential to fair trade, improved reliability of measurements, and regulatory compliance. Data compilations facilitate modeling of chemical processes and rational product design. New measurement techniques ensure quality and improve efficiency, and in turn enhance competitiveness.

Federal, state, and local governments use our products and services in ways similar to the commercial sector, but in different arenas. For example, calibrations, evaluated data, and reference materials are used to ensure the reliability of environmental monitoring programs. Carefully characterized physiological samples lend credibility to forensics tests. Measurement technologies developed and perfected in CSTL verify compliance with international treaties. Other national laboratories exploit the expertise and techniques developed here in discharging their mandates. Trade organizations, standards committees, and the academic and scientific community rely on CSTL's expertise for advice and guidance in establishing practical standards and uniform protocols. The academic and scientific communities rely on the data produced, critically evaluated and compiled by our staff as touchstones for their own research.

CSTL is organized along disciplinary lines:

• Biotechnology Division: DNA chemistry, sequencing; Protein structure, properties, and modeling; Biomaterials; Biocatalysis and bioprocessing measurements
• Process Measurements Division: Research, calibration services and provision of primary standards for temperature, pressure, vacuum, humidity, fluid flow, air speed, liquid density and volume, and gaseous leak-rate measurements; Sensor research
• Surface and Microanalysis Science Division: Nanoscale chemical characterization; Particle characterization and standards; Electronic and advanced materials characterization; Surface and interface chemistry; Advanced isotope metrology
• Physical and Chemical Properties Division: Basic reference data; Data for process and product design; Properties of energy-related fluids; Fundamental studies of fluids; Cryogenic technologies; Computational chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry Division: Chemical measurements research and services in: Analytical sensing technologies; Classical analytical methods; Gas metrology; Laboratory automation technology; Nuclear analytical methods; Organic analytical methods; and Spectrochemical measurement methods

Five-year strategic thrust:

• Broaden research in nanotechnology to encompass molecular electronics, combinatorial chemistry and nanofluidics
• Expand biotechnology program to include measurement research in tissue engineering, genetically modified organisms and bio-nanoelectromechanical systems (Bio-NEMS)
• Develop primary reference measurement methods and standards for key health status markers needed to improve patient-care and reduce healthcare costs
• Enhance efforts in informatics to incorporate new advances in computational chemistry and dynamic compilations